http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/7155-keystone-xl-a-line-in-the-sand-for-obama
Amy Goodman writes: "The White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by the 5.9 Richter-scale earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they'll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of
Nebraskans who will be directly impacted by the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline prepare to risk arrest on Day 3 of the Tar Sands Action at the White House, 08/22/11. (photo: rwreinhard/flickr)
Keystone XL: A Line in the Sand for Obama
As protest intensifies to stop a major tar sands oil pipeline, the president must choose: a green energy future or Big Oil profit.
he White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by the 5.9 Richter-scale earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they'll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of
A "keystone" in architecture is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the arch together; without it, the structure collapses. By putting their bodies on the line - as more than 200 have already at the time of this writing - these practitioners of the proud tradition of civil disobedience hope to collapse not only the pipeline, but the fossil-fuel dependence that is accelerating disruptive global climate change.
Bill McKibben was among those already arrested. He is an environmentalist and author who founded the group 350.org, named after the estimated safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 350ppm (parts per million; the planet is currently at 390ppm). In a call to action to join the protest, McKibben, along with others, including journalist Naomi Klein, actor Danny Glover and Nasa scientist James Hansen, wrote the Keystone pipeline is "a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet."
The movement to oppose Keystone XL ranges from activists and scientists to indigenous peoples of the threatened Canadian plains and boreal forests, where the tar sands are located, to rural farmers and ranchers in the ecologically fragile Sand Hills region of
"We'll be here when he gets back, too. We're staying for two weeks, every day. This is the first real civil disobedience of this scale in the environmental movement in ages."
Just miles to the east of Martha's Vineyard, and almost exactly 170 years earlier, on
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
Demanding change is one thing, while getting change in
TransCanada executives are confident that the
"We need jobs, but not ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil ... Many jobs could also be created in energy conservation, upgrading the grid, maintaining and expanding public transportation - jobs that can help us reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and improve energy efficiency."
Two Canadian women, indigenous actor Tantoo Cardinal, who starred in "Dances With Wolves", and Margot Kidder, who played
"It takes more than earthquakes and hurricanes to worry us - we'll be out here through 3 September. Our hope is to send a Richter 8 tremor through the political system on the day Barack Obama says no to Big Oil and reminds us all why we were so happy when he got elected. The tar sands pipeline is his test."
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
No comments:
Post a Comment