What are you doing for Labor Day? Sponsoring a rally to cheer for blowing off the tops of mountains and destroying one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots? If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer, you may not know it, but you are.
Verizon Wireless is cosponsoring a Labor Day rally dubbed “Friends of America,” backed by the fourth largest producer of coal in the United States: Massey Energy. The rally supports dangerous mountaintop-removal coal mining, hosts a speaker who denies global warming is happening, and is aggressively anti-union.
The Center for Biological Diversity is in an all-out fight to take on dirty-energy projects and stop destructive mining that harms our nation’s wildlife and wildlands. So the news that Verizon supports this pro-mountaintop removal rally hit close to home – because our staff use Verizon cell phones.
We sent a letter to Verizon’s CEO yesterday (see below) demanding the company immediately withdraw sponsorship and explain their support for mountaintop removal mining — or we’d be forced to find a wireless service that isn’t actively undoing our work to protect the environment and endangered species.
This rally is a chance to bring much-needed attention to the corporate backing of this environmentally damaging practice. Please, demand that Verizon withdraw its irresponsible and alarming sponsorship of the rally.
Verizon Wireless should not support this destructive mining practice or ignore the fact that greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants are the largest single contributor to our current climate crisis.
Send an email right now to Lowell McAdam, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, and demand Verizon withdraw sponsorship immediately from next week’s “Friends of America” climate change-denying, anti-union rally. Insist the company explain its support for the ludicrously destructive practice of mountaintop removal.
If you have trouble following the link, go to http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/t/5243/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27825.
Read the Center for Biological Diversity’s letter to Verizon Wireless here:
Verizon Wireless, President and CEO
Lowell McAdam
August 30, 2009
Dear Mr. McAdam,
I’ve checked out the Friends of America website which lists Verizon as a sponsor of its upcoming rally. The main page has a video attacking “environmental extremists” for trying to stop coal mining by mountain top removal. The advertised speakers include a prominent global warming denier and an opponent of endangered species protection. The Center for Biological Diversity and virtually all environmental activists oppose mountaintop removal because 1) coal-fired power plants are the largest single source of U.S. and global greenhouse gas emissions, and 2) mountaintop removal lays waste to entire mountains and the streams below them which are literally buried in mining residue. Thousands of fish and other aquatic species are harmed in the process, many of them being endangered species. The rally organizers are also aggressively anti-union.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a significant Verizon wireless customer. If Verizon does not revoke its support of this rally, the Center will be forced to explain to our email list of 250,000 supporters why we are switching our service to a carrier that does not promote global warming and attack environmentalists, endangered species, and unions.
Please let me know if Verizon intends to continue supporting Massey Energy and sponsoring this rally. As I’m sure you are aware, time is of the essence.
Sincerely,
Kieran Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710, Tucson, AZ 85702
Please take action immediately.
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Black Mountain, Virginia photo by Kent Kessinger, flight courtesy Southwings.
