Letter Delivered to TD Bank
"We implore TD Bank, the TD conglomerate, and all large banks, insurance companies, asset managers and institutional investors to immediately cease the funding and insuring of fossil fuel projects and to re-align their business interests with the hopes, aspirations and rights of humanity and the natural world by investing instead in the clean, renewable energy we need for a habitable planet." - John Seakwood (Hancock, Mass), Tendai Buddhist Institute
STOP FUNDING CLIMATE CHAOSthe moral imperative is clear
Bharat Masrani, President & CEOTD Bank Group79 Wellington St. WToronto, ÖN M5J 2Z9
Brian M. Levitt, Board ChairTD Bank Group
Evelise Lopez, Branch ManagerTD Bank125 State StreptAlbany, NY 12207
We, a diverse group or faith communities and people, are nere today to deliver a simple and urgent message: TD Bank. and the TD companies to which it belongs must immediate stop funding new fossil fuel projects.
According to the most recent reports of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), the internationally accepted authority on human-induced climate change, the world must take quick and bold action to reverse our reliance on fossil fuels in order to avoid climate calastrophe.
In reacting to the IPCC reports, Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General has said, "The scientific and moral imperative is clear: there must be no new investment in fossil tuel expansion, including production, infrastructure and exoloration."
The world's climate scientists are telling us that we are currently on a fast track to climate disaster, and the financing of new fossil fuel infrastructure puts that into even higher gear.
And yet, in just the last five years alone, TD companies have invested more than $121 BILLION dolars in new fossil fuel projects
Perhaps the most egregious among these many projects is the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The construction of this pipeline would violate treaties with indigenous peoples, endanger major waterways, and devastate prestine lands, all while fostering the accelerate development of Alberta's tar sands oil, the world's dirtiest, most climate-disrupting oil.
We implore TD Bank, the TD conglomerate, and all large banks, insurance companies, asset managers and institutional investors to immediately cease the funding and insuring of fossil fuel projects and to re-align their business interests with the hopes, aspirations and rights of humanity and the natural world by investing instead in the clean renewable enery that we need for a habitable planet.
The moral precepts of our various faiths, value systems and codes of and codes of ethics compel us to speak out about the sacredness of our shared Earth and against the unjust recklessness of new fossil fuel develment. Imposing impossible burdens on frontline communities and stealing the future from coming generations is immoral and must stop.
Rivers & Mountains Greenrath Circle
Kingston Interfaith Council
Capitol Region Intertaith Creation Care Coalition
New York State Council or Churches
Unitarian Universalist of the Catskils - Climate Action
Science of Spiritualtv
First Unitarian Universalist Albany - Green Sanctuary
Tendai Buddhist Institute
Buddhist Action Coalition - Upper Hudson & Berkshires
Mothers Out Front
People of Albany United for Safe Energy-350N)
Stop the Money Pipeline
Climate Advocates Bennington-350VT
Berkshire Environmental Action Team
350MA-Berkshires
Progressive Schenectady
Communtv Advocates for Sustainable Environmen•
No Fracked Gas in Mass
Extinction Rebellion - Capitol Region NY
Extinction Rebellion - Mid-Hudson NY
Green Education & Legal Fund