“Santa” and his elves made an early delivery to a Des Moines business today, but they weren’t dropping off presents. The group of Iowa college students delivered a lump of coal to Citigroup’s Saloman Smith Barney office to protest Citigroup’s financing of large oil pipelines. The group calls itself “Iowa Students Toward Environmental Protection or Iowa STEP, and they rallied outdoors in the cold to protest Citigroup-financed projects they say will accelerate global warming.Grinnell College student Kyle Marquardt says Citigroup is the fossil fuel industry’s leading financer and he says they also habitually refuse to invest in renewable energy.Marquardt says Citigroup is essentially financing global warming.The students are urging Iowans to boycott Citibank credit cards and other financial services as a means of punishing the company. The student dressed as Santa says the North Pole — Santa’s home — will melt because of the projects Citigroup finances. Local Citigroup officials say than cannot comment or respond to the students’ allegations.
