LETTER: We must all work together to stop supporting fossil fuels

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 3, 2017

I’m following up on Sheila Brown’s letter in the Dec. 4 issue about defunding DAPL, especially as it appeared side-by-side with Sarah Low’s editorial on the approval of Kinder Morgan’s expansion and its potential impact on Puget Sound killer whales. We are already seeing that impact, acutely last month with the death of J34 Doublestuf due to blunt trauma from a passing freighter.

But we are also seeing the positive impacts of a coordinated national, even global, divestment effort to support Standing Rock, to cut off the black snake at its source. It might seem that our small holdings don’t amount to much when pitted against the obscene wealth of the fossil fuel industry, but our holdings in banks multiply exponentially when they are withdrawn as a mass action.

The more we connect, coordinate and become a movement, the more we are able to stand up to what is consolidating, with the support of our new administration, into an unprecedented force that is launching a war on the natural world. We need to act in every way we can to protect our water and the fragile ecosystem that sustains us all. Let’s move all our money from banks that support the dying fossil fuel industry (Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo) to credit unions that support our community. Let’s do it now, and let’s be loud about it.

— Sue Letsinger