I was one of the thousands in the Tar Sands Resistance march through downtown St. Paul. Later in the march, one of the march volunteers told me that 5,000 people marched. That 5,000 number was also reported by Think Progress.
About 5,000 people attended the march, according to the Sierra Club’s Mark Westlund — making it the largest anti-tar sands march the Midwest has ever seen
This tweet from the Sierra Club describing marchers as "far back as the eye can see" is very accurate in my opinion. When I tried to look behind me to see how far back it went, I couldn't tell. The purpose of this diary is to provide some general observations about the march, and expound on what I learned about pipelines and talk about general solutions. The atmosphere and enthusiasm gave me optimism we can win this battle for climate justice. I couldn't help but be impacted by thousands of people marching and shouting slogans such as "We Are Unstoppable. Another World Is Possible." I saw parents who marched with their small children. One mother and father who marched with their small child had a sign "I March For Her Generation." I met an extremely energetic group who called themselves the "Raging Grannies." I ran into people who traveled long distances just to march. They were just ordinary people of all ages and walks of life who are very concerned about what is happening to our planet. They were concerned enough to spend 3+ hours on their feet on a Saturday afternoon. And it wasn't easy for everyone - there were a lot of older people there.
In this Think Progress interview Bill McKibben talks about some things he hopes the protest will accomplish:
The main goal of the protest was to emphasize that the conversation about tar sands and fossil fuels was about more than just the Keystone XL pipeline, McKibben said on a press call in the leadup to the march....McKibben said he hopes the protest in St. Paul will bring more attention to these other pipeline projects, which are being proposed all over the country.
I think the march did accomplish that. Why? Before the march, I was familiar only with the Keystone XL because so much of the tar sands debate revolved around it. I couldn't name any other pipelines. I learned about other tar sands pipelines at the march because (1) People talked about them (2) I signed petitions about them (3) People carried signs about them. In recent years, fossil fuel companies have proposed to expand and expanded tar sands pipelines carrying tar sands oil into the Midwest and Great Lakes region- link here. What are some of the other pipelines? Here is a chart:
The Alberta Clipper Line 67 pipeline carries tar sands oil from Handisky, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. Note that Enbridge is expanding capacity from 450,000 bpd to eventually 800,000 bpd. That would make the pipeline comparable to Keystone XL. Line 5 is a pipeline in Michigan that goes under the Straits of Mackinac. In this article (PDF) The Sierra Club addresses the potential impact of a Line 5 rupture:
Line 5 is an aging, 60-year old pipe that runs along the bottom of the Great Lakes and through the Straits of Mackinac, where water moves between Lakes Michigan and Huron at an extraordinary rate of three feet per second. A rupture under the Straits could be unimaginably devastating: in as little as eight minutes, Enbridge’s self defined fastest possible response time, this pipeline could pump as much as 1.5 million gallons of tar sands crude into the Straits and the lakes it connects. It took Enbridge seventeen hours to respond to the Kalamazoo leak.
Inside Climate News reports a spill on the aging pipeline could damage the water supply for 30 million people.
Two aging oil and natural gas pipelines running under the sparkling waters of the Straits of Mackinac in northern Michigan are time bombs that could devastate the upper Great Lakes if they rupture, according to a report issued today by the National Wildlife Fed
Line 6B runs through Southern Michigan and connects to lines in Canada and the east coast for oil export. This line was the site of the 2010 Kalamazoo oil spill disaster. The pipeline ruptured and over a million gallons of tar sands oil spilled in the Kalamzazoo River. The horror of this spill is illustrated in this Inside Climate News Article.. The Detroit Free Press reported 3 years later the river hasn't fully recovered from the oil spill. The operation and expansion of these tar sands pipelines represents President Obama's "All of the Above" energy policy David Roberts wrote about in Vox.
Arguments over Obama's environmental and climate legacy always come down to this: he's willing to support policies that reduce demand for fossil fuel energy; he's willing to support policies that boost supply of clean energy; but he is not willing to constrict the supply of fossil fuel energy.
The problem with an "All of the Above" approach where we try to reduce demand for fossil fuels through improved energy efficiency standards, we modestly increase the supply of clean energy, but we don't constrict supply is we don't have time for a slow incremental approach. The 2015 Climate talks are referred to as The Last Chance Saloon. The planet doesn't work with CO2 above 350 PPM - nature isn't going to say "let's pass what we can and come back for the rest later." I think it is past time for a very bold, aggressive worldwide climate action plan that will solve our ecological, economic, and human rights crisis throughout the world. In WWII, the world faced a global crisis in fascism. We didn't think we had the money to meet the challenge, but we found it. We converted industries to wartime production, we sold war bonds, we rationed necessary goods. The wartime production put money into people's pockets creating a postwar boom. The climate scientists tell us climate change is an even greater global crisis. We need a huge global clean energy infrastructure project that will simultaneously solve climate change and economic inequality. Yes, put millions if not billions of people to work at a living wage all over the world. No more sweatshops, no more slave labor, no more corporations exploiting people or the environment. Wouldn't such a plan not only solve our ecological crisis but also solve our economic problems by putting $$$ into people's pockets? In closing, I want to thank all the organizations and people who worked hard on this march. I want to thank all the people who marched and everyone who supported us. In this article Common Dreams notes that organizations really worked together on this march:
Under the social media tag of #StopTarSands, Saturday's Tar Sands Resistance March was sponsored by dozens of groups, including national and local environmental organizations, Indigenous communities, and various social justice groups who all agree it will take a unified front to fight back against the pipeline companies and fossil fuel interests pushing for expanded development of tar sands, shale oil and gas deposits, and other forms of extreme energy in the region.
Yes, it is going to take a unified front meaning all of us. The ecological win-economic win scenario I envision will require people around the globe to realize we are equals and that everyone has certain human rights.