the last gasps ....

If you still have any doubt that the world's oil is fast running out, the fact that even the UK may attempt to use oil produced from the Canadian Tar Sands - the most uneconomic, damaging to the environment and, frankly, CRAZY oil that has been or ever will be produced, should make it clear!

We have tied our econmies to oil, a dirty and finite resource that is now reaching its end, rather than making the infrastrucure changes (rail travel, renewables, either abandoning or rail-connecting the suburbs) governments are burying their heads in the sand and trying to keep things the way they were. This is not only stupid and dishonest, but extremely dangerous. If we don't start redesigning our societies NOW we will be leaving future generations living in extreme poverty, environmental destruction and violent climate change. Do you really want your kids and their kids to inherit this legacy, when we ALL know what needs doing?

Please read the following and act accordingly. Remember that the change from oil to post-oil requires that we use the remaining oil to help make these changes. The fact that many of us still think it's okay to waste this resource DRIVING to out of town shopping areas to buy more tat (made with oil!) shows that the government needs to take the lead. In this at least we are too dim or too selfish to think of anyone else!

This morning 50 Greenpeace activists are blockading the Department for Transport with two immobilised cars parked in front of the entrances and a giant handshake. Our government is trying to scupper legislation that will block tar sands oil - the dirtiest, most polluting form of oil there is - from being sold at UK petrol pumps.

Mining for tar sands is wrecking the Canadian boreal forest, destroying the homelands of indigenous people, and accelerating dangerous climate change.

So why then is the UK government trying to sabotage legislation that would block tar sands oil from European petrol pumps? Well it looks like they've been lobbied hard by the Canadian government and big oil. Now it's your turn to lobby.

Please write to Nick Clegg: he needs to tell the ministry for transport to stop standing in the way of green legislation. It's time Clegg acted on the green credentials he keeps talking about.

The tar sands deposits of heavy oil mixed with clay and sand lie below the surface of the Canadian wilderness. To extract the tar, oil companies destroy the Canadian boreal forest, gouge out hundreds of metres of top soil, and turn the landscape into a gaping black pit. Two tonnes of earth has to be dug up and processed to produce each barrel of tar sands oil.

Worst of all, tar sands oil creates three times the emissions per barrel that you would get from normal crude. There's no way tar sands oil makes any sense for our environment or climate.

Next week, officials will meet from across Europe to approve the plan that would prevent tar sands oil from ending up at the pumps. If the proposal goes ahead it would deal a major blow to oil industry plans to expand Canada's tar sands open cast mining operations.

Right now the vote could go either way because of the UK-led diplomatic effort to scupper it. That's why we need your help to put pressure on the government to stop its attempts to scupper the legislation.

Please join the lobby for legislation to block tar sands from Europe and write to Nick Clegg today.