Welcome to 350 Roaring Fork
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To volunteer or learn how to get involved in 350 Roaring Fork, please fill out our
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Campaigns
Stop Wells Fargo’s Money Pipeline!
Stop the Uinta Basin Railway!
Join 350 Roaring Fork and a coalition of dozens of groups in Glenwood Springs, for monthly peaceful protests of the Uinta Basin Railway! Details will always be emailed out, posted to our Instagram, and posted to our Facebook.
Sign our letter to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack to revoke the permit for the Railway! http://tinyurl.com/StopNewOilTrains
Most recently nearly 25 Roarers gathered on Saturday, Jan. 21st at the Forest Service Building (900 Grand Ave., Glenwood Springs) to demand that the Biden Administration and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack revoke the permit for the Uinta Railway project. Coloradans need to speak out uniformly against the threat of oil spills in our precious Colorado River as further expansion of fossil fuel production and consumption threaten one of our most beloved resources with catastrophic climate disaster.
The Uinta Basin Railway has already received the green light from Utah’s Ashley National Forest to complete an 88-mile rail spur connecting the Uinta Basin oil fields of northeastern Utah to national rail networks near Price, UT. The Federal Surface Transportation Board has also approved the project. All this despite the Biden Administration’s promises to take bold action to rein in carbon emissions. Environmental groups are suing to challenge both permits and hope Agriculture Secretary Vilsack will intervene.
The Uinta Basin’s “waxy” crude and shale oil is already trucked to refineries near Salt Lake City. Oil companies want to get much more oil out and to refineries along the Gulf Coast (where low-income, largely communities of color have lived and breathed the toxic byproducts of this nation’s fuel refining and suffered much higher rates of cancer and birth defects for generations). This new rail line would enable a quadrupling of production, resulting in another 53 million tons of CO2 to our climate emergency. What is worse, this viscous crude oil will be shipped in up to TEN, 2 MILE-LONG TRAINS A DAY along the Colorado River—the vital water supply for 40 million Americans and countless species of wildlife—posing an unacceptable risk of spills and fires. Once again, the fossil fuel industry is putting its profits over our recreation, wildlife, homes and water.
Sign the petition to Secretary Vilsack to revoke the Railway’s permit! http://tinyurl.com/StopNewOilTrains
Learn more here from the Stop the Uinta Basin Railway Coalition.
Lawns to Gardens
Green turf grass covers 40 million acres—2% of the U.S. land area—making it the largest irrigated crop we grow. That’s according to NASA. 40 million acres is larger than the state of Georgia. All for growing a monoculture of ornamental grass that you can’t eat.
We pour 9 billion gallons of water on our lawns EVERY DAY, according to the EPA. That is precious water we can’t afford to waste in the arid West. Outdoor watering represents the “consumptive” use of household water, versus indoor water use, which returns to the wastewater treatment plant and then to the water table. (14% of Colorado River diversions go to towns and cities; 84% goes to agriculture, which in Colorado is mostly hay and alfalfa to feed cattle).
On our lawns we dump fertilizer (synthesized with methane gas) and chemical herbicides like Roundup, containing glyphosate, which the World Health Organization classifies as a “probable carcinogen” in humans not to mention it negatively affects our much needed pollinators seed distributors.
Lawns involve mowing, weed whacking and leaf blowing. These 2-stroke gas-powered machines emit disproportionately more carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and smog-forming VOCs than cars or trucks. So much so that the California Air Resources Board found a best-selling lawn mower emitted as many VOCs as driving a Toyota Camry 300 miles.
350 Roaring Fork wants to see town medians and grounds around homeowners and condominium associations converted to native vegetation or gardens. We want to expand community and school gardens, develop gardening and farming apprenticeships and foster collaboration and resource-sharing among gardeners, food banks and markets.
Join our effort! Email: matt@350colorado.org.
Stop Wells Fargo’s Money Pipeline!
Wells Fargo has loaned coal, oil and gas companies $272 BILLION since the Paris Climate Accords. This makes Wells Fargo is the third leading financier of fossil fuels in the world, after Chase Bank and Citigroup.
Wall Street banks are obviously in the business of making money by any means possible. Recently, that has been achieved through blocking action to address the climate crisis; further perpetuating a negligent fossil fuel industry. The industry is still leveraging key members of Congress to make sure nothing is done, and is backed by four household name banks—Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Those billions of dollars could go toward renewable energy and other climate solutions. The low-carbon energy transition is going to cost billions of dollars. Ultimately, we can’t afford to finance new fossil fuel projects. End of story.
The encouraging thing is these are our banks! Or we know someone with a credit card, account or loan with one of these banks. And the only thing as valuable to a Wall Street bank as profit is name brand. Bad publicity hurts the bottom line.
If you bank with Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo or Bank of America, tell the CEO to stop financing climate destruction and start financing climate solutions. Move your money to a local community bank or credit union. Tell your friends and family.
Visit the Customers for Climate Justice Campaign site here to sign an open letter, call or email your bank CEO:
https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/customers/#letter
Resource on how to move your money out of the banks funding climate chaos:
https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/move-your-money/
Carbondale Climate Strike, September 2019
A few of the major accomplishments of the 350 Roaring Fork Team include:
- Compelling the City of Aspen to divest their $3.1 million in Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company of coal power plants and gas pipeline builders and operators.
- Hosting the Carbondale Youth Climate Strike in September of 2019 which brought hundreds of community members together for climate action.
- Organizing testimony and travel to hearings at the Garfield County Commissioners, COGCC, AQCC, CDPHE, and legislative hearings in Glenwood Springs, Denver, Rifle, and Grand Junction.
- Educating hundreds of community members through documentary screenings, workshops, and tabling at local events, and farmers markets.
- Standing up against fossil fuel projects by gathering thousands of signatures for state ballot initiatives and rallying support to stand with impacted communities in Battlement Mesa & Paonia.
- Publishing dozens of LTE’s/OP-Eds on climate issues in local and state news outlets
- We supported fellow organizations working to protect the Roaring Fork Valley
- We marched, demonstrated, attended meetings, wrote letters and postcards, called our representatives and defended Mother Earth in every way we could think of!