Fwd: There are 400 Spirit Bears left on Earth. Will you help save them?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: NRDC - Frances Beinecke <biogemsdefenders@savebiogems.org>
Date: 2011/11/3
Subject: There are 400 Spirit Bears left on Earth. Will you help save them?

Dear Anne, The last Spirit Bears are threatened by plans for a tar sands oil pipeline that would carry the world's dirtiest oil right through their coastal rainforest home. Please speak out now against this destructive project and defend the world's only remaining Spirit Bears. Their lives may depend on it. Don't let Big Oil decide the Spirit Bear's fate! Plans for a tar sands oil pipeline and supertanker traffic could end in disaster for the land of the Spirit Bear. Help us protect the world's very last Spirit Bears while we still can. Make your voice heard today! Dear Anne, We need your immediate help to stop an energy giant from endangering the last 400 Spirit Bears with a spill of the world's dirtiest oil. The Spirit Bear is one of North America's greatest wildlife treasures. Native only to the coastal rainforest of Canada's British Columbia, it is a race of black bears in which a recessive gene causes one out of ten cubs to be born all white. But Big Oil has other plans for the land of the Spirit Bear. The Northern Gateway pipeline, proposed by energy giant Enbridge, would carry 500,000 barrels a day of the world's dirtiest oil from the Alberta tar sands directly through the bear's rainforest home. Please send a message to Christy Clark, the Premier of British Columbia, demanding that her government actively oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline. A serious pipeline break could happen at any time as a river of toxic oil is pumped from the Alberta tar sands across the spectacular mountains and rivers of British Columbia. But it gets worse: When that oil reaches the Spirit Bear Coast, it will be loaded onto supertankers that will have to navigate treacherous reefs, hurricane-force winds and a channel six times narrower than the passage that sank the Exxon Valdez! Those oil-laden tankers will need to pass Princess Royal Island, the last stronghold of the Spirit Bear, as they churn through wildlife-filled waters that are home to orcas, humpbacks, fin whales and Steller sea lions. Can you imagine the sheer devastation a supertanker spill would wreak on this wildlife paradise? No wonder the native people of more than 70 First Nations are united in total opposition to this pipeline and tanker fiasco that could wipe out their way of life forever. Call on Premier Clark to stand with her province's First Nations in opposing the pipeline. And tell her that we will not sacrifice one of our continent's last great ecosystems, its thousand-year-old cultures and the few remaining Spirit Bears we have left for the sake of oil company profits. The First Nations can't stave off Enbridge's destructive plan by themselves. They need our strong support. A decade ago, NRDC stood with the First Nations and helped save the Spirit Bear's rainforest home from clear-cut logging. But with the land of the Spirit Bear now endangered by Big Oil, we must rise once again to its defense. Please take a moment to help save the Spirit Bear Coast by sending your own message right now. Tomorrow may be too late. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

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