Today, nearly six years after the fight over the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline moved into high gear, Donald Trump approved the federal permit for the pipeline -- but this fight is far from over.
It's not a surprise, but it still feels like a punch in the gut. A punch that should get us good and angry, not knock the wind out of our sails.
Seizing this moment will require more of the things that carried us through to this point: passionate organizing, committed actions, and courage on all of our parts.
Here's how I've been thinking about things today, as we prepare to mobilize again:
1) The approval doesn't mean it's a done deal. There's no permitted route through Nebraska; native tribes are hard at work in South Dakota; and a team of lawyers are gearing up to play their role as I write.
2) We've already won an awful lot. Six years times 800,000 barrels of oil a day equals a lot of carbon emissions saved. Not to mention that six years of delay has cost Transcanada a small fortune.
3) Every new pipeline, frack well and coal port is being fought and fought hard. You've heard of some of these fights, like the Dakota Access pipeline, but there are now hundreds of them across the world. Keystone jump-started a whole new phase of the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
There are many, many people who've been working to stop Keystone since the beginning, and they're gearing up for this next round of the fight.
Join a live strategy session on Monday, March 27th at 8:00 PM EST to hear from movement leaders who've defeated Keystone once, and are ready to do it again.
I'll be one of the presenters on the webinar together with brilliant organizers, Jane Kleeb with Bold Alliance, Wayne Frederick, Rosebud Sioux Tribe Council, Michael Brune from Sierra Club, Lindsey Allen from the Rainforest Action Network and Eriel Deranger from Indigenous Climate Action. We'll talk about how we can fight this pipeline with every available tool in our toolbox.
I wish there was a silver bullet -- there's just more of the hard work we've been doing for years. We organize, we build big movements, we fight.
We've got each other, and together we do good things. The next step we'll take together is in DC on April 29 for the Peoples Climate March. You'll see some familiar pipeline fighters there, along with tens of thousands of others, standing together against this industry's endless greed.
Sign up now to join the live strategy session and we'll send you a link to watch the live stream. During the webinar, you'll be able to share your thoughts and submit questions. See below...
See you there and in many places after that...
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