After a long and wacky week, a couple of friends and I headed down to Washington DC yesterday to take part in a historic action this afternoon. We and thousands of others from all parts of our country are joining hands to surround the White House to ask President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. It is President Obama’s call, he has to give the green light in order for this pipeline to happen. We’re simply trying to hold him at his word. He made many statements during his 2008 campaign that indicated he was a friend of the environmental movement. We want him to walk his talk.
I’ve been doing my homework about this dangerous pipeline for a long time now. Last August, I was one of 1253 people arrested in front of the White House in a huge, very solemn, very organized act of civil disobedience. We are doing our best to send a message to President Obama that this pipeline would be a disaster on many levels.
Tar sands should not even be called “oil”. This tarry gunk is 10% oil, 90% clay and sand. It takes 4 tons of earth to create one barrel of oil. And that earth is sitting beneath pristine boreal forests way up north in Alberta, Canada.Those forests act as a carbon sink, helping to keep climate change in check. When it comes right down to it, to extract oil from these tar sands is to invite catastrophic runaway climate change.
All to feed our huge addiction to oil. Our country guzzles 19 million barrels of oil every day. The human and ecological cost of this addiction is huge. We must put a greater value on clean water and health fish, wildlife that has not be poisoned.
Bill McKibben addressing a church filled with environmental activists. Beyond inspiring.
Last night, we filled a church in DC to listen to the Tar Sands Action team fill us in on the details. We heard Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and many others speak.
A member of the Indigenous Environmental Network spoke about the rights of Mother Earth, reminding us that we are part of the circle of life, we are not above it. We have a moral imperative to act to protect the boreal forests. As he said, “the creator gave you responsibility to be the stewards for future generations.”
Naomi Klein reminded us that climate change is a message from the earth: our current economic model is suicide. Greed doesn’t work. Will we use this crisis to evolve as a species or not? We must shift the underlying values of our culture.
Visit Tar Sands Action for more info on this historic action as we surround the White House to give President Obama a message. You could look at it as a big hug or as house arrest, depending on your viewpoint!
