Record crowd stands firm against a Tar Sands pipeline that’s ‘built to spill’
Protesters are arrested on Day 10 of the Keystone XL pipeline sit-in at the White House | Photo Credit: Josh Lopez
Today was the biggest day of peaceful civil disobedience yet at the White House as 140 Americans including the top climate scientist and a large group of religious leaders were arrested to push President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline.
NASA’s Dr. James Hansen, the lead climate scientist in the USA shared this statement following his arrest: “If Obama chooses the dirty needle it will confirm that the President was just green-washing all along, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians, with no real intention of solving the addiction.”
Earlier this summer, Dr. Hansen and twenty other leading scientists sent a letter to the White House urging the President to prevent the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, writing: “If the pipeline is to be built, you as president have to declare that it is ‘in the national interest.’ As scientists, speaking for ourselves and not for any of our institutions, we can say categorically that it’s not only not in the national interest, it’s also not in the planet’s best interest.”
President Obama must decide whether or not to grant a “presidential permit” for a Canadian company, TransCanada, to begin construction of the Keystone XL, a 1,700 mile pipeline from the Canadian tar sands to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
“Climate change hurts the poor first,” said Rose Berger, a Roman Catholic and editor at Sojourners magazine who led a large delegation of religious leaders participating in the protest and was arrested this morning. “The tar sands development and the permitting the Keystone XL pipeline will worsen climate change and should be stopped.”
“We must turn up the heat in a sustained effort against the scourge of climate change, which harms not just our land and water but people here and now, our human future and all earthly creation,” said Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist congregation in Bethesda, MD.
The executive directors of Greenpeace and 350.org, as well as the President of CREDO Mobile, also took part in today’s sit-in. So far, the ongoing White House protest that began on Saturday, Aug 21st has led to the arrest of over 500 Americans.
Bill McKibben: “We still need you here in DC”
There’s still time to join the peaceful action in Washington, DC and send a message to President Obama on the Keystone XL pipeline. Here more from 350.org’s Bill McKibben in this impassioned video update:
The protest will continue until September 3rd with large crowds expected each day.
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