Yesterday most of Hollywood picked up the Oscars edition of Variety expecting to see the usual ads sponsored by film production companies, explaining why their film or producer or actor should win the statue - and instead they got campaigned:

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The ad space was purchased by a long list of Canadian and American environmental organizations - including Greenpeace Canada - that have been running a long campaign against the extraction of dirty tar sands oil in Northern Alberta. (To see a full list of the organizations involved, and the original ad - please visit dirtyoilsands.org.)

Greenpeace activists have experienced the conditions inside the tar sands mining facilities (which so closely resemble those in Avatar) first-hand. They spent over thirty hours occupying an open pit mining site in September of last year - note the size of the trucks compared to our activists in orange:

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The Oscars are this Sunday, March 7th - our vote is in, what about yours?