350 Africa releases its second video message from Eugreen, our friend of the climate movement. His message is clear Nedbank needs to stop funding fossil fuels. Burning dirty coal is nasty!

South Africa’s addiction to coal  is destructive. It’s compromising the air we breathe (did you know that Witbank has the dirtiest air in the world?), our water (leaving the farmers who produce our food without adequate or usable water supplies), and the land we need to produce food (the corn belt and the coal belt clashed in Mpumalanga recently).

Eugreen always knew that most of our country’s power came from dirty coal, he didn’t mind it, as it seemed to be far away from his everyday reality.  But now, the impacts are hitting us all hard -with an increase in air and water pollution.

We have to be more concerned and involved. Coal is directly affecting and impacting the natural resources that really matter to us – water, land, clean air.

South Africa will need more coal to satisfy its addiction and most of this new coal will come from the world’s rhino sanctuary with new mines, and from the UNESCO Waterberg biosphere.  In a water scarce country, we cannot afford to lose these important sites.

Dirty coal  is no longer something we can turn a blind eye to.

The immediate problem is that Nedbank can’t wait to make these fossil fuel “investments” happen. The continued funding of dirty projects like coal mines and coal powered stations, means that they are  locking us into a very risky and polluted future, putting everything that matters to us in jeopardy.

 

Tell us and your friends what really matters to you by sharing this video on Facebook, and Twitter with the hashtag #ThingsThatReallyMatter and let’s clean up South Africa’s dirty banks.