On S17, Rise Up Against Wall Street's Debt to the Entire Planet

We hear it every day. In every magazine, in every commercial, Wall Street tells us that if we “shop greener,” we can save the planet and protect people’s health. Yet while they tout green commerce, Wall Street bankers are blowing up our mountaintops for coal, fracking our bedrock for gas, drilling in our oceans for oil, and building pipelines to carry it all across our precious lands. All roads lead to Wall Street, when it comes to the environmental crisis.

Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry are banking on burning about 27 trillion dollars of fuels buried safely underground right now. If we let Wall Street get away with dredging them up, the temperature will rise beyond what we can bear—not so long from now it will be so hot that if you go outside, you’ll die of heatstroke.

Meanwhile, vulnerable communities—those with the least financial and political resources—are bearing the brunt of Wall Street pollution and resource exploitation right now.

We are not going to shop our way out of this. Those who can afford to, might change a few lightbulbs and eat a greener diet, but if we act alone, the environmental crisis will escalate completely beyond our control. Without a massive, collective resistance to fossil fuel extraction around the world, our efforts will fall short.

They're betting on our fear and obedience. They're betting wrong.

Together, on September 17th, we’re withdrawing our complicity from a financial system that relentlessly borrows against our future. So join us at 10 a.m at Bowling Green in New York City for a convergence of the 99%. Bring your signs. Bring your banners. Bring yourselves and bring your friends.

No fracking. No pipelines. No tar sands. No coal. Those fossil fuels are going to stay in the ground. We’ll make sure of it.

Yours truly,

Occupy Wall Street – 99% Ground Swell for Climate Justice – and allies

Action Description

At 7 a.m. on September 17th, thousands of people will converge at the scene of the crime, the New York Financial District, to take a stand with Occupy Wall Street in our resistance against the failed capitalist system. We are calling for a Polar Bear Brigade, Solar Panel Team, Fracked Hazmat Crew and Sea Level Rising Bathing Beauties to stand in solidarity to connect environmental and economic injustice. First, we will form a “People’s Wall” around the NYSE. Later that morning, people will spread out and gather at intersections throughout the financial district, taking on Wall Street's debts, one bank at a time. Bank by bank, we will call out Wall Street's indebtedness to the people and to the land.

At 10 a.m,, the eco message will hit hard, rallying the 99% from scattered intersections towards Bowling Green. There at Bowling Green, we will surround the 1% in whirling "hurricane" of bodies and call for an end to fossil fuels, for an end to the corporate occupation of the planet, and for the beginning of a just and renewable future. As we circle New York's first public park, the 99% will remind the 1% that the Commons belong to us all.

Why assemble at Bowling Green?

Bowling Green, the first park in New York City, is the site from which Occupy Wall Street originally sprang, exactly one year ago. The park sits directly between the Charging Bull sculpture, one of the best known icons of Wall Street’s unrestrained capitalist greed, and the United States Bankruptcy Court.

The Bankruptcy Court is housed within the Museum of the American Indian, a sick reminder that, at this very location, the Lenape nation was first defrauded of the isle of Mannahatta. We stand in solidarity with the Lenape, whose land the City of New York occupies. Wall Street built its incredible wealth through land grabs and exploitation of Native peoples. From its stronghold in New York, Wall Street has spread colonial exploitation to every surface of the globe. It has colonized every country with debt, and resource extraction. It even colonizes the sky, as its dirty carbon emissions fill the air. We can't end this global capitalist exploitation – which is the root of the unjust Climate Crisis we now face – without acknowledging and ending colonization. Wall Street exploits our last non-renewable energy resources like coal, gas, and oil for the profit of the few, and at the expense of the 99%. As they borrow against our future, their debt to us grows.

On S17, Rise Up against Wall Street's debt to the entire planet.

Let's End the Corporate Occupation of the Earth. System Change! Not Climate Change!