I thought I'd let all my friends at DailyKos know that I will be joining this action tomorrow morning:
#NoKXL Pledge of Resistance Actions
Boston #NoKXL State Department sit-in
Join the rally and sit-in at the State Department office in Secretary of State John Kerry's home town of Boston, to build pressure on the Obama Administration as we await the State Department's final environmental review and a decision on Keystone XL -- and to show the serious commitment of the more than 75,000 activists who have pledged to risk arrest if necessary to protest approval of Keystone XL. Despite the partial government shut-down, the State Department office we will be sitting-in in front of, remains open.
This will be a peaceful and dignified action where some participants will be risking arrest. There will also be a support rally for those not risking arrest.
As a parent, I am compelled to do whatever I can, regardless of how ineffective others may think it will be, to fight the devastation that is already happening and will only get worse if we don't stop tar sands extraction and the movement of bitumen across landscapes.
I've been relatively politically quiet since Occupy. That experience was an extended and intense one. I was seriously injured during the Occupy Boston eviction arrest and I really needed to tend to my health and some home issues. I also need to regroup, psychically.
Social justice issues are of utmost importance to me. It's in my bones. I can't take a step without that framework being a part of my perspective. At the same time, I've been involved with things related to urban greening for quite a bit of the last 25 years. Clearly, eco-sustainability is also important to me.
I'm only one person. One person with a disability. One person who is a mother. I only have so much energy. Where to put it?
When I start reading what climate scientists are saying about climate change - and it's more than just 'warming' folks. it's about toxic inputs into the eco-system in so many different ways that we're causing all the underlying systems to break down - I realize that there can be no social justice if there is no ecosystem in which a human society can survive.
And, when James Hansen, former climate scientist for NASA, tells us that fracking and the Keystone pipeline project are "game over", I take that seriously:
James Hansen: President George W. Bush said that the U.S. was addicted to oil. So what will the U.S. response to this situation be? Will it entail phasing out fossil fuels and moving to clean energy or borrowing the dirtiest needle from a fellow addict? That is the question facing President Obama.
If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction. Canada is going to sell its dope, if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long-wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict.
I've seen the
photos of the landscape in Alberta, Canada. Read the reports on the
leaks they can't stop. Heard about the devastating health and sustainability issues besieging the
Indigenous communities whose lands are being destroyed by the tar sands extraction.
We. Need. To. Stop. We don't have any excuses for continuing when we can see, in real time, how it is hurting people and destroying the ecosystem.
I would like for my daughter and the many generations after her to have a habitable planet. I can't look her in the eye, if I don't stand up and speak out about how our generations are destroying it for them. Even if it seems futile to some. So, I will be there tomorrow morning, going through the frightening process of putting myself in the hands of the police. I don't relish the thought and I worry about my back and my chronicl illness. Still, I'll be there.