While thousands surrounded the White House, a hundred people marched through downtown Los Angeles in solidarity calling for Obama to reject the 1,700-mile tar sands oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast.
10,000 Surround the White House to Protest Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline
While thousands of protesters surrounded the White House on Sunday November 6, a hundred people marched through downtown Los Angeles in solidarity. All called for President Obama to reject the 1,700-mile tar sands oil pipeline proposed by TransCanada from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Obama has said he will make the decision by the end of the year, along with the State Department mulling whether it is in the National Interest. According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, however, the can could be kicked down the road, so to speak, delaying the decision until after the 2012 election. The Obama Administration fears backlash from either the forces of Big Oil or the thousands of citizen protesters from environment, climate, indigenous rights groups and midwestern land-water interests.
Occupy City Hall, Los Angeles, California
The next step with the President will go, according to Bill McKibben from 350.org interviewed on Democracy Now:
So, the best case is, Barack Obama says, “You know what? This thing is a bad idea. My foremost climatologist, Jim Hansen at NASA, says that if we tap the tar sands heavily, it’s game over for the climate. That should be enough.” But if he also says, or instead says, “It’s very clear that this process has been completely flawed and that the environmental review that the State Department conducted was a joke, and so we’re sending it back to square one for a fresh, independent review,” well, I think there’s no way this pipeline proposal would ever survive that.
NRDC Map of the Keystone XL route from Canada across the US heartland to the Gulf Coast.
The Environmental Impact Statement submitted by the State Department and supposedly an objective document was completed by Entrix, a client of TransCanada. Hence, no surprise this review declared that a 1,700 mile pipeline carrying diluted bitumen crude oil from the second largest carbon pool on earth would have “no significant environmental impact.” The study should be rejected and sent back for reworking.
Obama Administration officials might require a new pipeline route be assessed that would avoid the most sensitive areas. Further steps might also be demanded to limit greenhouse gas emissions, though considering tar sands bitumen burns three times more carbon than Saudi crude, this could hardly placate the climate protesters. Assessing environmental effects of alternative mitigation measures take months, buying Obama political cover.
As well, the study funded by TransCanada that claimed 20,000 new jobs would be created by the project was found to have used suspect numbers. The reality is that the project will create a few thousand temporary jobs and no more. The only credible study, done by a think tank at Cornell, found no new net jobs, as many postions would be destroyed by the project, including those necessary to create an alternative energy economy, solar panels, sustainable biofuels, wind power, more efficient automobiles, homes and offices. As well, rising fuel prices necessitated by the multi-billion dollar project would also destroy jobs.
The permit process for the $7-billion pipeline has already taken more than three years. Further delays could make the pipeline financially unfeasible for TransCanada and the companies that plan to ship crude through it. A delay in the project would not satisfy opponent complaints about the cozy relationship between the State Department and TransCanada, the issue that thousands of comments went missing last week. On the other hand, the oil industry has argued that if Keystone XL does not get a permit, TransCanada and its clients would develop the oil sands anyway and ship the crude west in a pipeline to the Pacific Coast. But environmentalists contend that there is far too much local resistance in Canada for that to occur.
Thank you Jack. I’m with Tar Sands Action – Los Angeles. Great work. I was at the white house – a ring of Earth around it – while all of you were here in LA – “acting up” – bravo!
Thank you to all those that participated in the march on the Whitehouse and in LA. I live in Alberta, only a few hours drive from the tar sands site. What is going on in
Northern Alberta is a travesty, not just to the ancient forests and wildlife, not just to communities pushed beyond their limits due to transient workers, not just to aboriginal communities now dying of cancers from all the pollution – but to the cost to our atmosphere – an irreversibel cost that cannot be undone.
Please America, do not take our dirty oil. Let’s leave it in the ground and choose a clean alternative. Let’s do it for our children. Let’s do it for each other.
1) COPY & PASTE this entirely into your Facebook STATUS
2) WATCH Bill McKibben on http://bit.ly/StopThePipeline
3) CALL 202-456-1111 & tell Obama VETO KeystoneXL
4) TELL Obama to VETO http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
5) WRITE to President Barack Obama, The White House
. . 1600 Pennsylvan ia Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500
6) WATCH & SHARE Harriet’s song http://bit.ly/NoTarsands
. . Harriet was arrested at TarsandsAction on her 65th bday
UNTIL PRESIDENT OBAMA SAYS “NO KEYSTONE XL”
UNTIL PRESIDENT OBAMA SAYS “NO TARSANDS OIL”
Thank you for the coverage of this action. It was a great day knowing we were standing in solidarity with so many other soldiers for peace and climate justice. The rain ceased and the sun shone just for the few hours we fought to save ourselves and our home. Thank you to all who fight this fight that we simply CANNOT lose.
Transformative tales that thrive in the world of Lost Souls, Fallen Angels, Shapeshifters, Extra-Planetary Dragons, and Lucky Charms. From an assortment of writers, now available from Borda Books and WilderUtopia Books is The Fifth Fedora: An Anthology of Weird Noir & Stranger Tales curated by Jack Eidt and Silver Webb.
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While thousands of protesters surrounded the White House on Sunday November 6, a hundred people marched through downtown Los Angeles in solidarity. All called for President Obama to reject the 1,700-mile tar sands oil pipeline proposed by TransCanada from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Obama has said he will make the decision by the end of the year, along with the State Department mulling whether it is in the National Interest. According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, however, the can could be kicked down the road, so to speak, delaying the decision until after the 2012 election. The Obama Administration fears backlash from either the forces of Big Oil or the thousands of citizen protesters from environment, climate, indigenous rights groups and midwestern land-water interests.
Thank you Jack. I’m with Tar Sands Action – Los Angeles. Great work. I was at the white house – a ring of Earth around it – while all of you were here in LA – “acting up” – bravo!
Thank you to all those that participated in the march on the Whitehouse and in LA. I live in Alberta, only a few hours drive from the tar sands site. What is going on in
Northern Alberta is a travesty, not just to the ancient forests and wildlife, not just to communities pushed beyond their limits due to transient workers, not just to aboriginal communities now dying of cancers from all the pollution – but to the cost to our atmosphere – an irreversibel cost that cannot be undone.
Please America, do not take our dirty oil. Let’s leave it in the ground and choose a clean alternative. Let’s do it for our children. Let’s do it for each other.
?”If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, it surely smooths the way for further expansions of the market for oil sands crude.
“Turning down XL, in contrast, draws a line in the oil sands, and affirms the principle that this carbon shall not pass into the atmosphere .”
http://bit.ly/XLRealClimate1
EVERYBODY = REMEMBER TO DO SOMETHING EVERY DAY
1) COPY & PASTE this entirely into your Facebook STATUS
2) WATCH Bill McKibben on http://bit.ly/StopThePipeline
3) CALL 202-456-1111 & tell Obama VETO KeystoneXL
4) TELL Obama to VETO http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
5) WRITE to President Barack Obama, The White House
. . 1600 Pennsylvan ia Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500
6) WATCH & SHARE Harriet’s song http://bit.ly/NoTarsands
. . Harriet was arrested at TarsandsAction on her 65th bday
UNTIL PRESIDENT OBAMA SAYS “NO KEYSTONE XL”
UNTIL PRESIDENT OBAMA SAYS “NO TARSANDS OIL”
Go L.A.! Keep fightin’ the fight!
Thank you for the coverage of this action. It was a great day knowing we were standing in solidarity with so many other soldiers for peace and climate justice. The rain ceased and the sun shone just for the few hours we fought to save ourselves and our home. Thank you to all who fight this fight that we simply CANNOT lose.
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