Across the West Coast, where Sierra Club membership is robust and active, residents are seeing warnings of a trade deal that could disrupt the climate and the environment.
The United States is currently negotiating a trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, with 11 other Pacific Rim nations. The TPP would threaten almost every aspect of our lives: our environment, access to healthcare and affordable medicines, and even the food we eat, air we breathe, and water we drink. But we’re not allowed to see the text of the deal.
Even worse, the TPP’s investment chapter would give multinational corporations including Big Oil and Gas polluters the right to sue governments over clean air and water protections that corporations aledge reduce their profits.
The Sierra Club launched a targeted ad campaign in California, Washington, and Oregon exposing these and other risks. The TPP has the potential to undermine decades of environmental progress in our country and threaten our ability to keep dirty fuels in the ground where they below. The West Coast has always been at the forefront of environmental progress, so it is critical to shed light on this toxic trade deal.
The ad blitz, which includes radio airtime in English and Spanish, online ads, billboards, and even ads on public transportation, focuses on just a few of the major threats of the TPP -- including that the TPP could increase fracking and threaten environmental protections because of corporate privileges in the deal. It exposes the complete and total lack of transparency of the ongoing negotiations of the TPP. Not only are talks going on behind closed doors, but every indication shows the TPP has the potential to wash away protections we rely on to clean up our air and water from pollution and other vital safeguards.
You can hear the radio ad, aptly-named “Secret” (or “Secreto” in Spanish), that states “If you think it’s wrong for Americans to be left in the dark, while some of the world's worst corporate polluters are actively involved in shaping the text of this pact, then visit sierraclub.org/TPP to demand fair trade, not toxic trade.”
