NASA's James Hansen, the government's top climate researcher, said
heavily tapping tar-sands oil, a particularly "dirty" form of fossil
fuel, would mean "game over for the climate." Ten of the president's
fellow recent Nobel Peace Prize laureates pointed out in a letter that
blocking the prospective pipeline would offer him a real leadership
moment, a "tremendous opportunity to begin transiton away from our
dependence on oil, coal, and gas."
But every indication from this
administration suggests that it is prepared to grant the necessary
permission for a project that has the enthusiastic backing of the
Chamber of Commerce, and in which the Koch Brothers -- who help finance
the Tea Party movement -- have a "direct and substantial interest." And
not just backing. To use the words of a recent New York Times
story, they are willing to "flout the intent of federal law" to get it
done. Check this out as well: the State Department, at the
recommendation of Keystone XL pipeline builder TransCanada, hired a
second company to carry out the environmental review. That company
already considered itself a "major client" of TransCanada. This is
simply corrupt, potentially the biggest scandal of the Obama years. And
here's the thing: it's a crime still in progress. Watching the president
do nothing to stop it is endlessly depressing.
For many of us,
it has been an overdue wake-up call, a sharp reminder of just who the
president was really listening to. In mid-summer, several leaders of the
environmental movement, myself included, put out a call for nonviolent
civil disobedience at the White House over the upcoming Keystone
pipeline decision. And more people -- 1,253 in total -- showed up to be
arrested than at anytime in the last 40 years. (One reason Obama's
emails stink this time around: the guy who used to write many of them,
Elijah Zarlin, not only isn't working for the campaign any more, but got
hauled off in a paddy wagon.)
Bare months have passed and already
that arrest record is being threatened, thank heavens, by the forces of
#OccupyWallStreet, a movement that includes plenty more of the kind of
people who rallied so enthusiastically behind Obama back in 2008.
Our message will be simple: If you didn't mean it, you shouldn't have said it. If you did, here's the chance to prove it. Nix the pipeline.
We don't want dinner. We want action.
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