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Wall Street is broke and broken. Giant banks, that refuse to take responsibility for their actions, knew a long time ago that they were gambling with our future. They took on extremely risky investments, and now we're all paying the price. Wall Street has too much power and influence and not enough accountability. When banks make bad investments, the consequences are massive. And right now, the very same banks that brought on the credit crisis through risky mortgage investments are driving the climate crisis by investing huge sums of money in fossil fuels, coal in particular. The question we have to ask is: Are we going to continue to let Wall Street run the show? The answer from RAN activists in New York and Boston over the past two weeks has been a resounding "No!"  This week in Boston, 150 activists descended on Bank of America and Citi to demand that they take responsibility for the impacts of their financing. The rally included speakers from City Life/Vida Urbana and Rising Tide Boston, ensuring that the two Wall Street behemoths heard loud and clear that Americans will not stand idly by while their homes are foreclosed on and the climate is pushed to its breaking point.
 The week before, in the heat of the financial meltdown, RAN and our friends in New York worked together to drop a banner from the flagpoles behind the iconic bull statue on Wall Street. We were there to tell Wall Street: We won't let you foreclose on America!
For the past eight years, RAN's Global Finance Campaign has urged America's leading financial institutions to take responsibility for the impacts of their investments and to recognize the financial and reputational risks inherent in directing vast sums of capital toward environmentally unsustainable and socially unjust projects -- from rainforest destruction and oil extraction to the construction of coal-fired power plants. The financial crisis has the potential to seriously change how business is done by big banks -- and RAN is ensuring that Wall Street is held accountable for the impacts of its financing. Never before have Americans been so aware of Wall Street's corruption and greed. Now more than ever, it is critical that we look beyond the bailout to the underlying cracks this crisis has exposed in our financial system. You can help by joining us as we work to shift the nation's focus from the immediate need to staunch the bleeding from the subprime meltdown to a vision for a socially just and ecologically sustainable financial system. Rebecca Tarbotton
RAN Global Finance Campaign Director
Rainforest Action Network | 
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