Energy East is a Climate Nightmare Action Kit 

Climate change is scary. And so is the largest tar sands pipeline ever proposed.

What’s even scarier is that the largest tar sands pipeline ever proposed, TransCanada’s Energy East project, wont receive a climate review — even with a climate impact the same as over 7 million cars. 

This Halloween we’re going send a message that Energy East is a climate nightmare. Politicians need to start taking the climate impact of this pipeline seriously. 

What You’ll Need 

Trouse d’action en Francais

Here is a list of materials you’ll need to pull this action off. If you don’t have a group of folks locally you work with to take action on things like this, let us know and we can connect you with other interested folks in your community, or connect you with a group that might be able to support this. 

10 Steps to Plan an Action 

 

  1. Pick a Target/Location. With these actions we want to send a message to politicians that Energy East is a major threat to our climate, so try and find a local target that politicians in your community will see like an elected officials office, a legislative building, a government office or another important location. Try and think of locations that will also look good in photos and make sense or be recognizable to people seeing your action.
  2. Get support and register your action. Register your action online here so we can communicate with other local groups, allies and others who can help support your action with media, local capacity, social media and more!
  3. Bring together a team locally to plan your action! It’s more fun to work together. Call up friends, leaders in your city, and allied organizations that you think would want to get involved. Host a first  meeting to get to know everyone and start brainstorming.
  4. Set some goals. These actions are about focusing a creative spotlight on the massive, and still largely ignores,climate impact of Energy East and showing the growing opposition all across the country. Your group can define the goals for your event, such as educating or involving a certain number of people in your community in the action, getting local media coverage, forcing a local politician to react or anything that makes sense for your group.
  5. Plan your event. Time to get down to details and figure out how you can make your voices heard through action. Here are some things to get done before the action:
        • Scope out and scout the location of the event.
        • Decide on time and location to carve your Jack-O-Lanterns, or if everyone in the group will be doing it at home.
        • Decide on a time and location for your action and make sure to register it here and make a Facebook event.
        • Get creative! We’ve included some basic templates for Jack-O-Lanterns, but you can get creative and artistic with other designs, as well as banners and posters to send your message in a clear and positive way. Here is a sample banner design.
        • Make sure that people are lined up for the day of the event
  6. Prepare for the Event. These actions will require some prep time to get art ready and pumpkins carved. This can be a great opportunity to get new people involved in your group, to build connections and have some fun. Think about hosting an event at someones house or a community space to carve your #NoEnergyEast Jack-O-Lanterns!
  7.  Reach out to Media. Once your actions is planned it’s time to reach out and get in the news! It’s important to figure out early who the reporters who cover environment are at your local paper, radio station, and TV station, and try to build a relationship. A couple days before your event you’ll want to send a media advisory, followed by a call to make sure they’ve received it. On the day of you’ll want to send a press release, and make another call to make sure they come out. Here are some examples of media advisories and releases.
  8. Take action! On the big day, gather your friends and action materials and get out to your action location. Make sure everyone speaking or being interviewed by press knows the key messages you’re trying to send that day, and don’t forget to document with photo and video (check out these tips for taking photos)! We’re hoping to have great photos and video from everyone to inspire more actions and organizing and share widely to others all along the pipeline route, this is an opportunity for us to show off the growing opposition all along the pipeline route. 
  9.  Report-back. After the event, we’re asking everyone to send in their photos and videos to help us create a shared, growing story. To submit your photos, please send them to [email protected] with the location of your photo in the subject line and short caption in the text of the email.
  10. Celebrate and keep organizing. After your media has been uploaded, take a breath, and celebrate with your team!  Maybe it’s time to roast some pumpkin seeds or make a pie! Be sure to thank everyone who helped, and plan a follow-up meeting as soon as you can. Assess what went well, where you could have improved, and start planning your next steps for building the movement! Contact [email protected] if you want to talk about next steps!
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