Anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to politics in America today can sense the decay of democracy stemming from politicians in both political parties who value holding onto power more than they value the future of our children, our nation, and our world. As the Wall Street bailout demonstrated in dramatic fashion, the game is rigged against the American people in favor of powerful corporate interests. Even foreign corporations get to play.
What if you learned that a multinational energy company was plotting to ram a 1,700-mile pipeline through America’s breadbasket to pump nearly one million barrels a day of their strip-mined tar sands oil sludge to refineries in Texas? What if you found out this foreign corporation was bullying U.S. citizens in six states with threats of eminent domain?
Imagine NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, telling you this: “…if we burn all reserves of oil, gas and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse [the Venus syndrome that Hansen warns could “destroy all life on the planet”]. Then this: “If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.” Would this stir you to action?
What I have just described is not a scene out of the science fiction film, Avatar. It’s real. The name of the foreign company is TransCanada and their $7 billion pipeline scheme is called “Keystone XL.” Completing this nightmare scenario is an Obama White House publicly on record saying they are “inclined” to grant TransCanada a presidential permit to build their pipeline on, get this, national interest grounds, with a decision expected by the end of the year.
They are “inclined” to approve this project, despite the following facts:
• This particular pipeline threatens to contaminate the drinking water supply of millions of Americans, and one-third of America’s farmland irrigation water, with toxic oil spills.
• This pipeline would expose families living near tar sands oil refineries to increased risks of cancer from toxic air emissions.
• Tar sands pipelines are 16 times more likely to leak than conventional oil pipelines, due to the corrosive, acidic content of toxic tar sands sludge.
• Tar sands oil production is three times more energy-intensive than conventional oil and emits up to 37% more greenhouse gases.
How, exactly, does this pipeline serve our national interests? Let’s see: TransCanada profits, and Americans pay with our health, safety, sovereignty, water resources and food security. Which nation’s interests are we talking about here?
It is obvious why TransCanada wants this pipeline built. It is less clear why the Obama White House would consider it. Keystone XL is expected to facilitate crude oil exports to China, not the United States. But even if the crude were sold to the U.S., it would only make America more, not less, addicted to foreign oil. Furthermore, the pipeline is projected to raise, not lower, gas prices in the Midwest. And it would generate only a fraction of the jobs promised by a U.S.-led green industrial revolution.
Ironically, the pipeline route runs through a region of the U.S. so rich in wind resource, it has the potential to supply several times our total national electricity usage. In the face of massive unemployment, it defies logic to be temporarily employing workers to lay pipe for Canada when we could be putting Americans permanently back to work building a national green grid for ourselves, along with the wind turbines and solar panels to power it.
We have reached a turning point in history where a major decision our government is about to make could destroy the ability of future generations to inhabit a livable planet. This is a defining moment for President Obama, who must now choose between our children and the oil lobby. Our job, as I see it, is to show the President the American people have his back in standing up to the oil industry. His job is to do right by us by rejecting Keystone XL and boldly championing a truly green industrial revolution.
In partnership with a broad array of citizens and organizations from across the political spectrum lined up against Keystone XL, I am leading a trike ride this fall along the 1,700-mile proposed pipeline route to draw the nation’s attention to the perils of this project and to help amplify the voices of the farmers, ranchers and rural families in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas who are directly threatened by this lethal pipeline scheme. Prior to the ride, I will join thousands of green patriots willing to risk arrest at a multi-day tar sands protest at the White House that fortuitously coincides with the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. The ride and the protest are designed to send a proverbial shot across the bow to the Obama Administration – and the climate misleaders in Congress – that we, the people, are taking back our power.
The 2010 “Ride for Renewables: 100% by 2020” was launched to reenergize America with a modern day green energy moon shot. Our bold call for 100% renewable electricity by 2020 resonated not just on Main Street, but at the highest levels of government, as evidenced by President Obama’s January State of the Union address. The question now is whether the President’s “Sputnik moment” challenge to the nation will spark a genuine U.S.-led green industrial revolution, or be undermined by polluting corporations like TransCanada to accelerate our march towards global climate catastrophe.
If last year’s BP Gulf oil spill taught us anything, it’s that energy companies lie, and pipelines rupture, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet. This foreign pipeline invasion simply must be stopped. United, we can bend the arc of history towards justice and hope. The American people are drawing a line in the tar sands, and TransCanada shall not pass.
(To learn more about the 2011 “Ride for Renewables: No Tar Sands Oil On American Soil!,” please visit: RideForRenewables.org).
[Tom Weis is President of Climate Crisis Solutions, an environmental consulting firm dedicated to solving the global climate crisis. A veteran environmental and political organizer for the past 25 years, Weis has worked as a congressional aide on Capitol Hill, directed environmental groups, served on presidential campaigns, and most recently spent six years in the wind industry, where he acted as strategic advisor to the president of the American Wind Energy Association (2008-2009). Last fall, he completed a 10-week, 2,500-mile bike trek to Washington, DC calling for a 100% U.S. renewable electricity grid by 2020.]
Meteor Blades and PDNC organized this blogathon for August 14-19 before he took a "leave of absence" from Daily Kos last week. For now, this will be the last of many projects, blogathons, and diary series that the two of them have done over the years on environmental, climate change, human rights, and political issues.
In honor and respect for our dear friend and project partner, this blogathon is dedicated to Meteor Blades by our blogathon team of PDNC, rb137 and JekyllnHyde.
"Stop Tar Sands" Blogathon: How You Can Help
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse has coordinated this blogathon with Bill McKibben, who is one of the organizers for a civil disobedience action in DC from August 20th to September 3rd to urge President Obama to not give a presidential permit for the proposed tar sands XL pipeline from Alberta down to Texas. This civil disobedience action is modeled on one that the group Transafrica used outside the Washington Embassy in the 1980s: Nelson Mandela said it played a key role in raising awareness about apartheid. The plan is for a new group of people each day of the two weeks to trespass on the sidewalk in front of the White House.
This is not a protest of President Obama. As Bill McKibben noted, the protest is designed to show President Obama the "depth of support for turning down this boondoggle" as it will be the "biggest civil disobedience protest in the environmental movement for many many years."
We know what the future will look like with the XL pipeline.
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