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Sunday's Tar Sands Protest. photo by Josh Lopez
This morning, while 50 of their friends faced another day in jail, 45 more Americans were arrested as part of an ongoing sit-in at the White House. The DC Park Police have been telling organizers of the sit-in that they were keeping the first wave of demonstrators in jail to deter people from taking part in the civil disobedience. In fact, the arrests have just the opposite effect.
“Saturday’s arrests and overnight jailings are already lighting a fire,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who was arrested Saturday. “More people are now inspired, determined, and committed to join. On Monday alone over 20 DC-area doctors, lawyers and students will be going to jail to chant, sing, and stop the pipeline. They’ll be joining Nebraska ranchers and others nationwide. Word is spreading.”
Tidwell was released from jail Saturday evening along with 9-12 DC residents. Among those still being held at Central Cell Block was writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben who is spearheading the protests.
Another 50-100 people will be taking part in a civil disobedience training this evening at a DC church in preparation for Monday’s sit-ins. Among those preparing for arrest are a group of Nebraska farmers and ranchers who have been working to resist the proposed pipeline back in their home state.
“Nebraskans are counting on President Obama to do the right thing,” said Jane Kleeb, Director of Bold Nebraska, who will be risking arrest on Monday. “Back home we are fighting to protect our land and water. We decided to bring that fight to the President’s doorstep because our families’ legacies, those that homesteaded the very land now threatened by a foreign oil company, are too important for us sit on the sidelines. We are acting on our values and expect our President to act as well.”
“Fight, Fight Fight!”
Timed to coincide with the events in DC is the Stop the Pipeline Tour. Four landowners are taking their message along the pathway of the pipeline to visit with their neighbors about the dangers that Keystone XL presents.
“Like many along the proposed route, we’re standing up to defend our rights and oppose this dangerous pipeline. We want water that’s safe to drink, land that’s fit for our families, and a way of life free from the threats and harassment of a foreign corporation,” said David Daniel, a Texas landowner fed up with TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline.
Check out this video from their first Tour event.
40 Comments
This is a lot more people than I thought. Civil disobedience training, in light of this, is a really good idea. Will you be there?
Is the opposition about the aquifers/water supply or climate change?
Those are radically different issues (for me, at least.)
Excellent!
Indigo11 wrote (my bold):
I really do wish you the best of luck. Unfortunately, I think it is the factor of “luck” that will have to prevail for EPA and/or DOI to be more aggressive.
Pollution and disruption of water sheds leads to desertification and climate change from what I understand.
For example, extrapolate this Savoy Experimental Watershed (Arkansas) with the additional of industrial (conventional mining, petrochemical and nuclear) pollutants. The native living things (not GMO) and the inanimate, “circulatory” systems of the Earth are a unit. As a chemical engineering consultant to the State of Texas told me off the record when I was the Water Quality Analyst for the State, no one knows how to reclaim an aquifer once it is poisoned.
Thanks so much for this, Daniel.
Just called DC central cellblock and found that both Dan Choi and Scarecrow are still there, along with Bill McKibben. They haven’t been transferred to other precincts.
Good to hear that you have located the guys, Jane.
I agree: Sound Environmental Policy is sound Climate Policy, and vice versa.
We are all outlaws in the eyes of Amerika…
Excellent news!
This peasant would send them a pitchfork if I could!
GO, FARMERS!
America and her children are counting on you. We need you and your safely grown products to survive!
I just don’t think the climatologists really know what’s happening. It’s far from a hard science. It’s a really insular, biased line of science (that has also been co-opted by Monsanto’s biodesil program, as far as I can tell).
Pollution of something like a water supply, on the other hand, is pretty basic science.
I don’t know. My heart is with Scarecrow and the rest of the imprisoned, regardless.
Hope y’all don’t think I’m some sort of paid (or otherwise) plant for saying so.
I am happy to hear this. Well, not exactly “happy” but relieved that you’ve found them. I cannot believe this is a legally defensible action on the part of the Park Police.
Here is a report of concerns regarding nuclear waste dumping and the Ogallala and the Dockum aquifers (Liz Berry, Aug. 21, 2011).
Great to hear that farmers and ranchers will be taking part. While Obama vacations at Martha’s Vineyard – relaxing at the beach and playing golf – Nebraskans will be in D.C. defending their land and water from the oil industry. Which side are you on, Obama?
Take a look at 350 Science.
Good, make sure those in the “authority” know that all are being watched and tracked.
Thank you Jane and all for standing-or sitting-where i cannot. We all come to the plate at the right time.
I’m not sure if this information is connected, but word is that T. Boone Pickins, the big Texas oil man is and has been buying up water aquifers along with the Bush crew of criminals.
There is sound Climate Science, but it doesn’t get published nearly as much as it should be, because corporations and environmental groups receiving money from often ignore the sound science and may, for instance, like President Obama, endorse filthy obsolete climate-and-energy schemes, like the highly polluting and already obsolete Solar Panels:
Since Obama and groups with nice names sounding like they want to protect us support this, people accept it … at their peril:
Solar Panels, including the ones just installed on the White House, require emissions of Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3), the second-worst Greenhouse Gas made, and the one that is increasing fastest in our atmosphere.
Chemists know this, but there’s no money in publicizing it.
Good on you and so many aware Nebraskans, Daniel. My father-in-law lives in Lincoln, and is very upset. So many institutions and private people are drawn to the huge payouts for access. But the Lincoln Journal Star editorial is wonderful:
http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_466bbee6-2011-59dc-9112-b6efc73b29c6.html
That it’s claimed to be a matter of National Security, is sick. I know it’s largely the route, but Member of Congress issuing objections are so…weak sauce.
DuPont who patented NF3 & the companies selling it are running scared, afraid that some news organization will report the truth about the panels. Their new strategy is to trick towns into signing a 30-year contract to compel keep buying the already obsolete technology, even after they learn the truth about it.
For Athena and others on the water issues:
Please read the entire article. The meat is in the middle and end.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/207036
Bold Nebraska’s ‘Stand With Randy’ Campaign – a beaut ! an excellent example of what happens when you organize locally
http://standwithrandy.com/about-randy.shtml
I would order a bunch of LED illuminated plastic pitchforks and liberty torches from the FDL OnLine Store if they were offered and if they were made in the USA (FDL JOBS PROGRAM). I would easily pay a premium price in order to advance the FDL Action cause. Jane could take them lit onto a darkened stage at the Daily Show and other venues and the game would be on. Plus, gazillion$ in action money!
However, sadly, there is no FDL store (WHY!!). I won’t just donate and I won’t buy from a Cafe Press type thingy unless I’m assured that it wasn’t foreign sweat shop produced.
And, on the pitiful economics of the whole thing:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-27/why-keystone-pipeline-will-weaken-us
mikesacola @ aug 21 at 7:03 pm
“I would order a bunch of LED illuminated plastic pitchforks and liberty torches from the FDL OnLine Store if they were offered and if they were made in the USA (FDL JOBS PROGRAM). I would easily pay a premium price in order to advance the FDL Action cause. Jane could take them lit onto a darkened stage at the Daily Show and other venues and the game would be on. Plus, gazillion$ in action money!”
I love this idea, Mike. I’d like to see it happen. It’d raise money and get great press.
Now i’m really pissed. I just found out the pipeline goes through our oil reserves leaving a straight shot for the coast. Were they also thinking of selling our oil reserves to the chinese. These corrupt politicians all need to go with King Chaos in 2012. Also Burn On, Jane and all in DC.
Baloney.
“TransCanada ‘will be able to use its market power to raise the heavy crude to Midwest refiners above the level that would prevail in a competitive market.’”
TransCanada neither owns nor refines the crude, it transports it and makes money by charging a toll on the passage, like the NY Thruway Authority. TransCanada could care less what the price of oil is so long as tar sand oil is competitive enough to have folks in the US want to ship it down. TransCanada cannot control the price of oil at all, it chrages tolls for transport of oil which are regulated by the US Government.
“Millions of Americans will spend 10 to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel as tribute to our ‘friendly’ neighbours to the north.’”
Much more friendly than the Saudis. I’d rather have millions of US residents pay 20 cents more a gallon than thousands of US citizens going repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan, getting killed wounded maimed, or having to kill or maim hundreds of thousands foreigners to maintain the flow of Middle East oil.
Ship the oil to China. So what? The fact is oil is a commodity which will sell at prevailing price from anywhere to anywhere. The issue is security of supply which is undoubtedly improved as a result of Tar Sands oil and Keystone. I doubt tar sand oil can compete for the Chinese market after transport costs across the US and then shipping with Saudi oil. Even if it could it is no reason to oppose the pipeline.
Are there risks and climate impacts associated with this project. You bet and activists should focus on mitigating those risks. But let’s stop pretending the world without Keystone and tar sands is somehow ideal. If we do not purchase oil from Alberta we will purchase the same amount from Saudi Arabia and the MIddle East and continue to rely on our military to subisdize the security of those purchases. That subsidy is not reflected in the cost for a gallon of gas but we pay it, and a relativer few of us pay wth their lives as do countless foreign civilians. In our all volunteer military no one pays more than the the folks from lower socio economic classes who end up in the military and in harm;s way to maintian the flow of Middle East oil. And all that military action causes terrorism which is a tax on each and every US citizen.
I am a very liberal person. However, this opposition to Keystone is not well thought out. I do not see these farmers as heros, just at best misinformed. These folks prefer risking the lives of US and foreigners, continue our terrorism tax, and continue the enourmous and hidden financial subsidies related to importation of Middle Eastern oil (i.e. military securirty) than take on any risk to their own business. And without regard to the relative ease with which that risk may be mitigated, relative to what we now undertake to insure uninterrupted oil imports from the MIddle East.
Yes we should move to renewables with all deliberate speed. In the meantime we should end our reliance on foreign oil and and stop spending treasure and lives to maintain the status quo.
By the way, large holes can be backfilled and replanted. Not that hard.
I am pissed that smart folks are working so hard to continue our dependence on Middle East oil and al the wasteful spending of treasure and blood and creaiton of terrorism that that involves.
I am disgusted by the arrests and attempts to silence these protesters, but I disagree totally with their protest.
No, your post is baloney.
From an NY Times editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/opinion/tar-sands-and-the-carbon-numbers.html:
“Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers
Published: August 21, 2011
“This page opposes the building of a 1,700-mile pipeline called the Keystone XL, which would carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does.. . .
It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution.
One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020 — even as other sectors are reducing emissions. Canada still hopes to meet the overall target it agreed to at Copenhagen in 2009 — a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. If it falls short, as seems likely, tar sands extraction will bear much of the blame.”
In my experience, liberals tend to do their research before they come roaring out of the gate crying “Baloney!” Simply do a Google search for “tar sands.”
From Wikipedia: “Making liquid fuels from oil sands requires energy for steam injection and refining. This process generates two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the production of conventional oil.[3] If combustion of the final products is included, the so-called “Well to Wheels” approach, oil sands extraction, upgrade and use emits 10 to 45% more greenhouse gases than conventional crude.[4]”
continuing to be covered in Canada on national news.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110821/white-house-alberta-oil-pipeline-protests-110821/
To Athena:
Climatologists do know enough about what’s happening to predict with a significant level of probability that not only will global warming occur due to human greenhouse gas activity but that it is already happening. At regular intervals from about the 1980s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group consisting of thousands of climatologists from around the world, has issued consensus reports on climate change. Each report has concluded that the probability global warming is really happening is high, even though as a consensus group their conclusions tend to be rather conservative. Each report has raised the level of probability; reports in recent years have also said the warming is happening faster than expected.
MSM has done a lousy job of covering this; it’s just scandalous that so many Americans buy into the meme that climatology is an uncertain and inexact science. This is partly due to the fact that people confuse meteorology with climatology; since the accuracy of weather reports declines rapidly for each day into the future, common sense suggests that predicting weather years into the future is ridiculous. Also people look at the weather trends in a given year and if there’s a severe winter think it negates global warming. But the global warming that will cause such dire events only consists of an average rise in temperature of a few degrees. I suggest that anyone who doubts the validity of climate science should look into it further and find out how it’s done. It is as impressive a field of science as any other.
BTW, only in America is global warming controversial. People in the rest of the world know better.
Simply put, tar sands is a global warming nightmare.
How much of a dent will tar sands oil make in our dependence on Mideast oil?
Also, smart folks like Bill McKibben know that there are far worse things than dependence on Mideast oil. And the terrorism involved with that would never have happened in the first place if the US and the West in general had not behaved like a giant terror machine in the Mideast for much of the 20th century and to the present. From the CIA’s coup d’etat in Iran:
Wikipedia: “Shortly after the return of the Shah, on 22 August 1953, from his flight to Rome, Mosaddegh [who was democratically elected and a great leader] was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah’s military court. On December 21, 1953, he was sentenced to death. Later, Mosaddegh’s sentence was commuted to three years’ solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest in his Ahmadabad residence, until his death, on 5 March 1967.[55][56][57] Mosaddegh’s supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. The minister of Foreign Affairs and the closest associate of Mosaddegh, Hossein Fatemi, was executed by order of the Shah’s military court. The order was carried out by firing squad on Oct. 29, 1953.[58]”
to our support for brutal and repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, etc., our war of choice in Iraq and on and on, we have brought terrorism, very much including 9/11, down on our own heads. And now because of terrorism we have to despoil our water and risk the world’s climate with this pipeline? I suggest you simply don’t know enough about the issues to have a valid disagreement with the protest.
I’ve researched it. I know the process. I also know the nightmare of coninued reliance on MId-East oil to include trillions for never ending wars that only exacerbate the terorist threat, the police state we’ve created in response to terrorism, the human anguish, deaths and maimings that go on and on – all to maintain uninterrupted supply of oil from the MId-East.
No thank you. We can address or offset the environmental issues in the tar sands, as well we should. Offsetting 10-45% increase in overall GHG emissions is eminently doable. That should be the focus of activist, not knee jerk opposition which continues our reliance on Mid-east oil & all that that entails. The risk of Oil leaks from terrestrial pipelines can be lessened with greater segmantation of the pipe, auto closure valves and the like. Such leaks are also easier to repair than deep water drilling which the Administration appears now poised to once again approve. Valves can be manullay operated should all else fail, unlike Deepwater horizon.
This project could go full steam ahead alongside initiatives to increase fuel efficiency and incorporate alternative energies and fuels into our energy mix. While we wean ourselve soff fossil fuels we will still require large quantities, better from Canada than Saudi Arabia.
The proper goal should be to end that dependence and all the horrific subsidies that go along with it.
You are wrong and 100% ignorant of what I know. Bin Laden attacked due to our presnece in Muslim holy lands in Saudi Arabia, he was quite open about that. That presence is necessitated, or so our leaders claim, to insure continued flow of mid-east oil. We attacked Iraq for oil and we now occupy that nation and all of its Muslim holy places & Afghanistan. Our support for brutal Arab regimes is due to one thing – oil. our Iranian coup was about oil. It is all about oil in that region of the world.
End the dependence, end the occupations, end Arab sponsored terrorism. End the costly and hidden subsidies and the killing & deaths.
If you want to protest companies not doing what they can and should to minimize environmental impacts in Alberta and along the Keystone path, fine I am with you. If you want to stop the project, no way. I don’t want my kids and grandkids dealing with the same Mid-east issues we all grew up with and continue to deal with year after year.
There is no free lunch with energy, you pick the least damaging both environmentally and security wise. You do all you can to minimize impacts using & requiring best available technologies.
And because TCPL does not own the oil or market it the statement I quoted above
“TransCanada ‘will be able to use its market power to raise the heavy crude to Midwest refiners above the level that would prevail in a competitive market.’”
is pure, 100%, unadulterated BS.