Tell Oprah: Stop promoting tar sands lies on your network

Tell Oprah: Stop airing dirty tar sands lies on your network. Oprah shouldn’t allow her network to promote these exploitative ads. Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition: “Oprah, don’t allow your network to exploit both women and the environment. Renounce the misleading ‘Ethical Oil’ ads promoting the environmentally catastrophic Canadian tar sands oil as a means to empower women in Saudi Arabia.” Automatically add your name: Learn more about this campaign Dear Friend, Oprah Winfrey is a respected voice who has fought hard to advance the rights and lives of women all over the world. But now she’s allowing that work to be co-opted, by validating on her network a dangerous campaign of flat out lies that promote the development of the Canadian tar sands. ‘Ethical Oil’ is a purportedly grassroots Canadian group, but it has major ties to the tar sands industry. The astroturf group ran an ad last week exclusively on Oprah’s Canadian TV station, pushing the lie that developing the tar sands will aid the plight of women living in the oppressive Saudi regime, by reducing demand for Saudi oil.1 The ad is the worst kind of propaganda that manages to exploit both women and our environment.2 Oprah shouldn’t let a legitimate concern for the rights of women be co-opted to promote the dirtiest oil in the world, while keeping us addicted to the oil that fuels the Saudi regime. Tell Oprah: Denounce the dirty tar sands lies broadcast on your network — it’s outrageous to suggest that exploiting Canadian tar sands oil will empower women in the Middle East. Click here to automatically sign the petition. The Keystone XL pipeline is primarily being built to help export dirty Canadian oil from ports in Texas and Louisiana to Asia and Europe.3 And incredibly, one of the Gulf Coast refineries that would process this tar sands oil is half owned by Saudi Arabia’s national oil company.4 So if anything, this tar sands oil will make the Saudis even richer. The Keystone XL pipeline, the key to rapid development of tar sands oil, won’t help reduce America’s reliance on Middle East oil one bit. But the fact of the matter is we need to confront climate change by drastically reducing our consumption of oil no matter where it is produced. Tell Oprah: Denounce the dirty tar sands lies broadcast on your network. Click here to automatically sign the petition. The unconscionable ad of ‘Ethical Oil’ aims to tug at the heart strings with stories of unjust arrests of Saudi women — glossing over environmental devastation in Canada, massive oil spill risk in the US, major escalation of the carbon emissions that threaten our future, and the fact that Keystone XL pipeline won’t actually reduce our demand for Saudi oil. None of those is the least bit ethical. Oprah should do the right thing and denounce the ads, stop running them on all her stations, and explain that we must end our dependence on all oil. Tell Oprah: Denounce the dirty tar sands lies broadcast on your network. Click here to automatically sign the petition. Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets 1. “‘Ethical Oil’ TV Ads Re-Brand Canada Oil Sands On Oprah Winfrey Network,” Huffington Post, August 28, 2011 2. “Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey on ‘Ethical Oil’ Ads,” DeSmog Blog, September 7, 2011 3. “Key facts on Keystone XL,” Tar Sands Action 4. “U.S. Oil Giants Poised to Gain on Keystone Pipeline,” National Journal, August 5, 2011   Share on Facebook Post to your wall Tweet this Post to Twitter