As part of our H2Oil screenings at Hot Docs in Toronto, we have paired up with organizers who are keeping it real fighting the Tar Sands on the ground.
Come out to the action event and learn more about the Tar Sands and find out how to get involved in stopping the destruction.

WHEN: Saturday, May 9th, 2009 at 13h

WHERE: 252 Bloor St West, Room #2-211 in OISE

Speakers include:

GEORGE POITRAS, Former Chief from Fort Chipewyan’s Mikisew Cree First Nation

CLAYTON THOMAS MULLER
Indigenous Environmental Network

ERIEL TCHEKWIE DERANGER
Rainforest Action Network & Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation

JESSIE KALMAN
The Polaris Institute Tar Sands Organizer

The event is hosted by OPIRG in collaboration with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Polaris Institute, Rainforest Action Network, the Dominion, and Loaded Pictures.

We are pleased to announce that H2Oil has made the official selection of HotDocs 2009.
It will have its world premier in Toronto on Friday, May 8th at the Bloor Cinema in 6:30 pm (506 Bloor Street West) With an additional screening on Sunday, May 10th at 11:30 a.m at the ROM Theatre (Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queen’s Park)

Watch the trailer on the Hot Docs site and buy tickets here.

Excerpt:
Our planet is heating up at an alarming rate, threatening our very survival. What needs to be done is simple: The pollution and destruction of Earth must be stopped immediately. But instead,there is a lot of greed, false solutions and lies about how to save our future.It seems that leaders of the world are more concerned about making money than solving the climate crisis.

This is a quick guide to the truth about false solutions to climate change. These market-based scams allow polluters to avoid reducing their pollution, continue to destroy nature and make millions while they are at it. The United Nations, the World Bank, industry, multinationals, governments and even some NGOs promote this climate fraud. Could it be that crimes against humanity and the planet are being committed and nobody knows?

But what does all this have to do with Indigenous Peoples?

Unfortunately, most of these false solutions are violating not only the law of nature but also Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Many of these so-called “solutions” to Climate Change are grabbing Indigenous Peoples land and devastating our planet. Indigenous Peoples need to know what’s going on so that they fight back.

“Capitalism is in deep crisis, but it still has a green card to play. Rather than taking effective action against climate change - which would mean a radical reduction of industrialized countries’ emissions and questioning the forced growth of the capitalist system itself - they are reaping mega profits from biofuels and carbon trading. These market mechanisms and techno fixes will be a disaster for the poor, and will result in a new form of colonialism. They are already privatizing the atmosphere and subsidizing enormous corporate land grabs of peoples’ lands and forests in the Global South. Instead of business as usual, emissions must be drastically reduced, which means that fossil fuels must stay in the ground.” Oliver Demarcellus, Youth Climate Advocate

Three Types of False Solutions:

The Carbon Market buys and sells permits to pollute called “carbon credits”. It claims to solve the climate crisis but really just allows polluters to buy their way out of reducing their emissions. This multi billion-dollar pollution trading mechanism privatizes the air and commodifies the atmosphere. The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change opposes the carbon market. “We cannot condone activities that defile the sacredness of Mother Earth, Carbon trade-induced conflicts.endanger our survival.” Northern polluters can also get permits to pollute through projects in the South like a dam or a tree plantation under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change calls the CDM “a new form of colonialism.” Permits to pollute could also soon be generated by promising not to cut down forests and plantations that absorb pollution. This is called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change says “REDD will not benefit Indigenous Peoples, but in fact,will result in more violations of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights.Under REDD, States and Carbon Traders will take more control over our forests.

Dirty “Clean” Energy (Nuclear Energy, “Clean” Coal, Natural Gas, Dams, Agrofuels and Hydrogen) - What got us into this mess in the first place is certainly not what’s going to get us out! Fossil fuels andother energy sources that cause environmental devastation and violate human rights are being green-washed, labeled “clean” and wrongly called solutions to climate change. Indigenous Peoples worldwide have suffered from nuclear energy and nuclear testing, fossil fuel extraction, big dams and plantations. Now comes more destruction in the name of saving the climate.

Playing God - Let’s dump tons of iron filings in the ocean, spray the stratosphere with banned sulfates, genetically modify trees and wrap the deserts in white plastic! Is that a way to save your children’s future? Crazy schemes that sound like comic book science fiction are being implemented to sell permits to pollute and to try to modify the weather. Needless to say, these climate change mitigationstrategies corrupt the sacred.

CHECK OUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ GUIDE “False Solutions To Climate Change”

CLICK: http://www.earthpeoples.org/CLIMATE_CHANGE/Indigenous_Peoples_Guide-E.pdf