Strike Exxon Out of Nationals Park. Volunteer>>

Do you want to have fun protesting global warming this summer? Do you want to feel like you’re making a difference despite your busy schedule? Want to do all this AND get a free ticket to a Nationals game?

Then we have you covered. Join us this summer as we protest ExxonMobil’s presence at DC’s new “green” ball park by passing out literature outside the stadium. Why protest? Because ExxonMobil is the single biggest contributor to global warming of any corporation. Period. And because the oil giant is the dominant advertiser at DC’s new LEED-certified ballpark.

Learn more at www.strikeoutexxon.org!

Join us starting on June 20th to creatively protest ExxonMobil’s dominant advertising presence at the new “green” ball park. Plus, the first five volunteers for any home game will get a free ticket! Sign up by contacting volunteer coordinator Lisa Lincoln at lisa@chesapeakeclimate.org.

At the same time that ExxonMobil is raking in record-breaking profits from $4-a-gallon gasoline, it’s also spending its money sponsoring climate deniers, promoting the fossil fuel industry…and advertising at Nationals Park. Not only is ExxonMobil a dominant advertiser at the new stadium, the oil giant even sponsors the 7th-inning stretch. Don’t believe us? Just watch this short video of Exxon at the new ball park.

Now are you ready to protest? We thought so. The campaign launches the evening of Friday, June 20th and we will be at the park consistently for the next ten home games (see schedule). Please contact volunteer coordinator Lisa Lincoln for more details at lisa@chesapeakeclimate.org (you may also give her a call at 301-642-3135, but please try email first). She’ll plug you into the schedule and make your volunteer experience as simple as pie.

See you at the ball park.

Best,

Mike TidwellDirector, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

PS – To make sure ExxonMobil isn’t profiting from our protest, please bike or metro to the stadium! Directions found here>>

Background:

The nation’s capital has a brand new Major League baseball park, the first ever built with so-called “green building” features. The $600 million park for the Washington Nationals includes such eco-amenities as an in-house recycling center, copious bike racks, energy efficient lighting, and a special low-flow plumbing system.

This is all good. But visitors to the new park have also seen a lot that is decidedly “ungreen.” The most dominant advertiser at the park is controversial oil giant ExxonMobil, a bigger contributor to global warming than any other company in the world. The entire left field outfield wall, in fact, is plastered with the ExxonMobil logo. And the 7th inning stretch is announced as “the ExxonMobil 7th inning stretch,” with the company’s ads dominating the huge scoreboard as parents and children sing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

This blatant “greenwashing” in an era of rapid global warming is, of course, an outrage. Several concerned organizations now plan to publicly protest Exxon’s presence at Nationals Park. We plan to creatively and noisily use this situation as a chance to educate the public about both Exxon and climate change.

Already, leaders from three concerned climate groups met with Nationals officials in April to demand the team stop accepting Exxon’s ad dollars in this supposedly “green” park. But the Nationals have refused. This opening conversation was initiated by Mike Tidwell (Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network), Shawnee Hoover (legislative director for Friends of the Earth and former director of the nationwide campaign called Exxpose Exxon) and Allison Fisher (director of the Great Washington Interfaith Power and Light).

Now these same groups would like to invite you and your organization to participate in a sustained, summer-long campaign to publicly demand Exxon voluntarily discontinue advertising at Nationals Park. We will begin with a well-publicized press conference outside the park on June 20th. This will be followed by the presence of volunteers – including lots of folks in polar bear suits — distributing literature and broadcasting anti-Exxon messages at EVERY remaining home game in 2008 until the advertising stops. Our goal is to get fans to boo loudly during the ExxonMobil 7th inning stretch. Our goal is tag the company as highly controversial from the opening press conference forward so that we end this practice.

Another extremely important goal is to make sure that Nationals Park does not become “ExxonMobil Park.” Mike Tidwell of CCAN has explicitly asked senior Nationals team officials if Exxon will make a bid for the stadium naming rights later this year. These officials have refused to rule out an Exxon bid.