The decision was made in partnership with the youth-led Climate Strikes coalition that had been planning three days of public actions around Earth Day, but is now also moving their plans online.
Stop the Money Pipeline issued the following statement:
The COVID-19 coronavirus challenges all of us to find new ways to come together, show solidarity with the most vulnerable, and continue our fight for change.
Just like the climate crisis, this pandemic is already hitting hardest for the most marginalized in our society. Our top priority must be protecting the health and safety of our communities. While it’s up to individuals and local organizations to decide the best course of action for themselves, as a coalition we believe the only responsible option at this moment is to pivot away from in-person protests.
While public rallies aren’t an option at this time, there are other creative ways we can keep up the pressure on financial institutions to end the funding of climate destruction.
In the coming days, we will announce plans for a major online campaign against the largest funders of fossil fuels and deforestation: companies like JP Morgan Chase, BlackRock, and Liberty Mutual, and the major pension funds, universities, and institutions that still refuse to divest from oil, gas, and coal.
Our goal is to engage hundreds of thousands of people in a nationwide effort to move our money out of companies that continue to bankroll climate destruction. That means cutting up credit cards, switching to ethical banking, ditching dirty insurance companies, divesting from fossil fuels, call-ins to companies, and putting direct, relentless pressure on Wall Street to clean up its act.
As the markets reel, oil stocks plunge, and governments debate bailouts for fracking companies while ignoring the needs of everyday workers, our demand for financial institutions to start prioritizing people, not polluters, is more important now than ever.
We look forward to the moment when the regular order resumes, because at this point in human history that normal order necessarily involves resistance.
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Contact: Jamie Henn, press@stopthemoneypipeline.com, 415-890-3350