Nearly 300 environmental activists have been arrested outside the White House, including author Bill McKibben, founder of 350.0rg. They are calling on President Obama to block an oil pipeline that would dramatically increase US carbon output from dirty Canadian tar sands oil.
McKibben, along with author Naomi Klein, actor Danny Glover and Nasa scientist James Hansen, has called for two weeks of action to block the KeystoneXL pipeline, which they called “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”.
For background, see “Tar sands oil pipeline could contaminate US heartland“.
The largest environmental organizations in the country are stand together with the protestors. Here’s the text of their letter of support:
Dear President Obama:
Many of the organizations we head do not engage in civil disobedience; some do.
Regardless, speaking as individuals, we want to let you know that there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone Pipeline and those of the very civil protesters being arrested daily outside the White House.
This is a terrible project–many of the country’s leading climate scientists have explained why in their letter last month to you. It risks many of our national treasures to leaks and spills. And it reduces incentives to make the transition to job-creating clean fuels.
You have a clear shot to deny the permit, without any interference from Congress. It’s perhaps the biggest climate test you face between now and the election.
If you block it, you will trigger a surge of enthusiasm from the green base that supported you so strongly in the last election. We expect nothing less.
Sincerely,
Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund
Michael Brune, Sierra Club
Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council
Phil Radford, Greenpeace
Larry Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation
Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth
Rebecca Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network
May Boeve, 350.org
Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters
Margie Alt, Environment America
What you can do:
Please sign a petition requesting President Obama to reject the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
Join the White House sit-in here
More on the Keystone XL action and the Tar Sands:
- Tar sands oil pipeline could contaminate US heartland
- Bill McKibben faces jail to block Keystone tar sands…
- Keystone XL tar sands pipeline a small part of a bigger picture
- Why we should block the Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline – Sen. Bernie Sanders
(Photo of Bill McKibben arrested at the White House by Shadia Fayne Wood for 350.0rg)
About Jeremy Bloom
Shame on you Mr. Obama.
As a Canadian, I find your support of, the dirty tar sands, very offensive. It is abundantly clear, you have no idea of the horrendous eco damage, the tar sands are inflicting on the far north.
This dirty oil is so toxic, if this atrocity is spread all over the globe, we are in serious doo, doo.
I know, Canadians have e-mailed you, the destruction of the eco systems, the dirty oil is inflicting on the environment. Read them well, they are all true. Don’t let your own people down, as our Prime Minister has let down, his own citizens.
At some point, common sense had better trump greed.
Now the U.S. is arresting peaceful demonstrators, just like Russia! When did we turn into a police state and what happened to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that are supposed to protect freedom of speech?