An Invitation to Join the Tar Sands Action in DC
Dear friends—
Once again, we’re sending you another long letter to ask for your help.
It’s been several weeks since the last people got out of jail in Washington DC, at the end of two weeks of civil disobedience that led to 1253 brave people ending up in handcuffs to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. It was the largest such action in decades, and because of their leadership lots has begun to happen.
# The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu along with seven other Nobel Peace Prize winners wrote a letter to the president asking that he block the pipeline. They acknowledged the actions of those of us in DC, saying: “These brave individuals have spoken movingly about experiencing the power of nonviolence in that time. They represent millions of people whose lives and livelihoods will be affected by construction and operation of the pipeline.”
# At President Obama’s first public speech since the sit-ins ended, a hardy bunch of University of Richmond students unfurled a huge banner demanding that the president veto the pipeline – followed by similar actions in Columbus, Ohio, Raleigh North Carolina, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wilmington, Delaware and many many others.
# Meeting on the Rosebud Sioux reservation last week, Native tribal leaders from both sides of the border and private land owners from South Dakota and Nebraska signed a ‘Mother Earth Accord’ opposing Keystone XL and the tar sands. These are the people who started this fight; and they’re being joined by everyone right down to Nebraska Cornhusker football fans who booed lustily when a Keystone ad showed up on the Jumbotron at a recent game. The next day the university ended their sponsorship deal with Trans-Canada Pipeline
# Even as we issue this letter, Canadian activists by the hundreds are risking arrest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and brave protesters are trying to block shipments of heavy equipment to Alberta from Idaho and Montana–these are remarkable signs of continent-wide protest.
# And on the not-so-good-side: huge wildfires driven by the worst drought in Texas history have destroyed towns and killed good people; the biggest rainfalls ever recorded have done similar damage in New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.
So—there’s real momentum for action, and real need. We have less than 90 days to convince the President not to approve the pipeline. So here’s the thing: we need your help again. We need you to keep using your creativity and bodies as a part of this struggle—to fight this fight even though there’s no guarantee of victory.
Here’s the plan, in three stages
1) Most important of all: On Sunday November 6 we will return to Washington. Exactly one year before the election, we want to encircle the whole White House in an act of solemn protest. We need to remind President Obama of the power of the movement that he rode to the White House in 2008. This issue is much bigger than any individual person, President or not, and that we will carry on, with or without him.
We’re not certain this is the right plan. We don’t know if there are the thousands of people that it will take to encircle the White House—we’ve never tried something this ambitious before. And we worry that it’s too earnest and idealistic—that maybe we should be going back to jail. But unlike last time, this time we’re working from a position of strength, and we can firmly but peacefully remind the president that we were the real power behind his campaign. We’re not expecting any arrests at this action, but we are expecting to send an unmistakable, unavoidable message.
To join the action on the 6th, click here to sign up: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/sign-up
2) But we have to start building momentum now with action in our communities. Between now and October 7, the State Department is holding a series of hearings on its flimsy report on Keystone XL. Our colleagues in the environmental movement are doing a good job of organizing for those meetings, including the final one in DC—and we’ll be supporting a rally at the final hearing.
But starting on October 8, we’ll begin a rolling series of actions at key Obama campaign offices around the country. We want these to be a bit bigger and more serious than what’s come before, so we’ll be doing training and providing materials to folks in those communities. We need to make sure that the message gets through to headquarters that people remember the promises from the 2008 campaign and want them kept.
3) We need to keep showing up at the president’s public appearances – just like what’s already been happening on campus after campus, town after town. (We especially like the chant that goes: “Yes We Can…Stop the Pipeline.”). Our organizing team is tracking the president’s every appearance to look for opportunities to act. If the President is coming to your neighborhood, we need you to get his attention. (We’ll help you do that).
We’ve already shown we have the courage and the fortitude for civil disobedience.Now we need to mix it up and show a different side of the campaign. Many of us were sincerely moved by Barack Obama’s campaign for president. We’re not yet ready to concede that his promises were simply the empty talk of politicians. We’re not going to be cynics until we absolutely have no choice.
It will be a beautiful and brave sight, the White House enclosed by the kind of people that put President Obama there. Since he’s said he’ll make up his mind by the end of the year, now’s the time. We know it’s hard to get to Washington, but if you can: this is the moment.
Thank you. A lot.
Tim DeChristopher, inmate, Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong California
Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
Courtney Hight and Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition
Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska
Bill McKibben, tarsandsaction.org
Gus Speth, former chair, president’s Council on Environmental Quality
Becky Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network
Lennox Yearwood, Hip Hop Caucus
Tar Sands Arrests: from Betsy Krogh after her return from Washington:
Betsy
—– Forwarded Message —–
From: “Elijah Zarlin, CREDO Action” <act@credoaction.com>
To: Elizabeth Krogh <ecknpg.2812@verizon.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 1, 2011 9:06 AM
Subject: Our arrest at the White House
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Dear Elizabeth,
On Monday, CREDO CEO Michael Kieschnick, Political Director Becky Bond, campaigner Josh Nelson, and I were arrested in front of the White House for protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
More than 700 people have been arrested since daily sit-ins began on August 20th, and over 185,000 CREDO members have signed our petition to President Obama asking him to reject this project.
This is a crucial test for the President — to see how far we will go in our use of destructive fossil fuels; if he will dig us in deeper, at greater and greater cost, or if he will stand up, and just say no to reject the madness of this project. It is his decision.
On Saturday at a rally in front of the White House, our petition will be delivered to the President. More than 1,000 people will have been arrested by then and after two weeks of protests, the White House is going to take special notice of this petition.
We need your name to be on it, too. Can you add your signature to help reach 200,000 signers?
Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action P.S. — Here’s Michael, Becky and me being arrested:
 Photo by Josh Lopez. |
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Dear Elizabeth,
“Essentially game over” for the climate.
That’s what climate scientist James Hansen calls the proposed Keystone XL pipeline — which would carry oil out of Canada’s vast tar sands oil fields to Texas, where it will be refined, then burned across the globe, dealing a catastrophic blow to our chance of returning earth to a stable climate.
This project requires a presidential permit to start building — and it is President Obama’s decision alone to grant or deny that permit. He will make the decision as soon as September.
The Alberta tar sands are a carbon bomb. The 3rd largest oil field in the world, the difficult extraction and transportation of the tar sands oil ultimately produces up to three times the carbon emissions of traditional oil. (And extreme environmental devastation along the way.)1
The Keystone XL pipeline is the fuse to this bomb — a highway to swift consumption of this dirty, dangerous crude. As if that wasn’t enough, it poses a massive spill risk in the six states along the pipeline route, including over the Ogallala Aquifer which provides up to 30% of our nation’s agricultural water.
We. Must. Stop. This.
The administration’s previous decisions on climate do not inspire confidence that they will deny the permit. Just last week, the administration approved offshore oil drilling in the Arctic. They have opened vast new areas to coal mining, and late last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even said that she was “inclined” to approve Keystone XL.
But President Obama still has the final word. He does not have to negotiate with Congress or industry. As his State Department reviews the permit, the decision — which could have a devastating impact on the livability of our nation, and our world — is entirely in his hands.
We’ve lost too many climate fights already. We need a massive, historic show of pressure to make sure we don’t lose this one. Please sign the petition and read below for other ways to get involved.
Thank you for fighting for an oil-free future.
Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets 1. “Keystone XL Pipeline,” Friends of the Earth
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