XRLA LEGAL SUPPORT
This GoFundMe is to support XRLA's nonviolent climate activism. Los Angeles is the largest urban oil field in the country. Thousands of active oil wells embedded in the L.A. population of 10 million humans bring devastating health consequences to frontline communities. We are now in the midst of the biggest drought in 1200 years, and the wildfires are coming again this summer. Yesterday it was 100˚ at the Griffith Observatory. One hundred degrees. In April. We are asking for your help.
Since the formation of XRLA in early 2019, we've marched on consulates, shut down banks, confronted L.A. politicos and corporate titans, blockaded fossil fuel infrastructure sites, and media companies that refuse to tell the story. We've supported frontline, Indigenous, BIPOC, Climate Youth, and other communities all over Los Angeles. We are your neighbors, on the front lines of climate activism, and we risk arrest with strategic nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience.
On Wednesday, XRLA partnered with Scientist Rebellion -- 1200 scientists worldwide -- to sound the alarm on our Climate Emergency. Our target was Chase Bank, the world's largest, most predatory funder of the fossil fuel industry for the past five years. It is not our first time confronting Chase Bank with nonviolent direct action. This time, four courageous scientists chained themselves to the bank, risking their careers and safety to let you know that our collective future is on the line. But the financial forces against us are deep-pocketed and ruthless.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded with close to 100 cops and four fire trucks. To arrest four scientists in lab coats. But who is it, exactly, they are protecting? These banks and other financial institutions that fund fossil fuel infrastructure? These banks who put greed and short-term profit ahead of our children's future? Chase Bank, the mercenary bank that called for the arrest of these four scientists, is trying to break us. Yet these banks must be stopped if we're to have any chance to protect our children's future.
Extinction Rebellion Los Angeles will not back down until they do. Every dollar we raise will be used ONLY to fund our legal defense, the essential support that allows us to do our critical work. With your help, we will succeed. Because LAPD cops, like all other cops, have kids and families. And they know we speak the truth.
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and other nonviolent activists have proven throughout history that direct action and civil disobedience are powerful tools. But funding this work is truly challenging - the machine is totally rigged against us --501c3/c4 nonprofits cannot help us without risking their charters.
If you believe in the science, that the survival of our species is at stake, we URGENTLY need your help to continue this work, and in the name of your children and your grandchildren, we ask you to support us now. We turn to you, our Los Angelino family, to help fund our powerful work. All of our shared futures are at stake; we ask you to please participate in any way you can.