Thousands Surround Obama's White House: 'Stop Keystone XL!"

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Common Dreams

Published on Sunday, November 18, 2012 by Common Dreams

Thousands Surround Obama's White House: 'Stop Keystone XL!"

- Common Dreams staff

Thousands of people began a planned march around the White House on Sunday afternoon, calling on the Obama Administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and keep tar sands crude out of the US.

The demonstration, organized by 350.org, the Sierra Club, and other public interest and environmental groups, followed a “Do the Math” climate event at Washington, DC’s historic Warner Theater earlier in the day.

"Do The Math" is a 21-city nationwide tour by 350.org—headlined by 350 co-founder Bill McKibben and author Naomi Klein—aiming to connect the dots between extreme weather, climate change, and the fossil fuel industry. Designed to galvanize the climate justice movement in the wake of the election, the tour is helping to launch a direct assault not only on politicians, but the big oil and gas companies that finance their campaigns and hold enormous political sway in Washington.

“It’s time to start holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for the wholesale damage they’re doing to our planet,” said McKibben just prior to the march on the White House. “If Sandy showed us anything, it’s that the hour is late and the need is urgent–but the fossil fuel industry has terrified our politicians and the result has been two decades of inaction. We need that to change.”


Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/18-1

[nilram]

1. k&r

[mimi85]

2. Obama's White House?

Didn't know he was a landlord as well as POTUS.

[olddad56]

20. I found that reference odd also. It was never Bush's White House.

But at least protests are allow at Obama's White House, at Bush's White House, protesters would be whisked away to an out of the way, fenced in, designated protest area.

[Cal Carpenter]

32. Not quite true

While that type of thing happened for W's second inauguration and at the RNC convention, there were dozens of other, major protests that marched past and surrounded the WH during bush's reign.

[lbrtbell]

21. As long as it's not "Romney's White House"...

I'm a happy camper!

[gateley]

26. +1

[Summer Hathaway]

29. It's part of current DU culture

E.G. If the Department of Justice does something a certain contingent here applauds, it will be described simply as the DOJ.

However, if the department does something a certain contingent doesn't like, they label it as "Obama's DOJ."

Ergo, it becomes "Obama's WH" if and when convenient.

[hughee99]

3. It seems to me that if they wanted to have more influence on this issue,

and felt it was something President was specifically capable of fixing, they could have had this protest a few weeks ago instead of waiting until after the election.

Now is the time when the politicians don't have to care what anyone thinks, at least for another year.

[nolabear]

4. Meanwhile, in Thailand with President Obama...

Right planet, wrong half.

[SoapBox]

6. Exactly.

Oh for heavens sake...he wasn't even in town.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

17. Exactly...

[polichick]

5. The beginning of holding his feet to the fire...

If he's serious about dealing with climate change, this is low hanging fruit and a good place to start.

[Agony]

7. unconventional gas development that President Obama supports is likely just as dangerous

SoMAS - Fracking, Shale Gas, and America's Energy Future
Robert W. Howarth, Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology from Cornell University
speaks at SoMAS on Friday, November 9, 2012.

"The Sustainable Energy Dilemma"
70 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=X9kpXr7IZM0

natural gas may be dirtier than coal

Howarths paper and website
"The past few years have seen major changes both in our understanding of the importance of methane as a driver of global climate change and in the importance of natural gas systems as a source of atmospheric methane. Here, we summarize the current state of knowledge, relying on peer-reviewed literature.
Methane is the second largest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide."

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/Howarth%20et%20al.%20--%20National%20Climate%20Assessment.pdf

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/Marcellus.html

[ReRe]

8. K&R

Thanks for posting this news from commondreams about the protest. So many people are misinformed about this issue. People think that that oil will be for us in the USA. It's not. All it's doing is traveling through and despoiling our environment on its way to the southern coast, where it will be shipped elsewhere in the world. It reminds me of how GW administration misinformed the American people about Saddam Hussein being responsible for the 9/11 tragedy.

Who will pay for those inland environmental mishaps when they occur? The American people will, with their lives, and their money. Not the Canadian company. Why can't Canadian Co run that pipeline through their own country to the shore... over to BC for example? Because the Canadian government knows there will be a heavy environmental price to pay. And unlike our country, the Canadian government CARES about it's environment, i.e. it's people more than it cares about that buzzard company making a buck on their dime.

[socialist_n_TN]

36. THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's why "Drill baby drill!" is such an idiotic slogan. ALL oil extracted or shipped and transported, anywhere in the world, goes on the international market and is sold to the highest bidder. That's capitalism. And you're also correct in that any mishaps that occur will be the cleanup responsibility of the citizens of the individual countries and states where the mishaps happen, NOT the conglomerates that will profit from the transactions.

Welcome to DU BTW.

[limpyhobbler]

9. Obama will approve the pipeline because he is a puppet of the oil industry and the big banks.

[Overseas]

11. We need to protest more and more to counter the great power of the oil industry.

[limpyhobbler]

13. Yes.

Our government is incapable of making a rational response to the climate crisis.

We need more people to tune in to this issue.

We should ban oil companies from spreading their lies in TV ads, the same as we ban cigarette companies from TV ads. It is a public health issue.

[Kolesar]

19. Are you feeling all right?

I'm concerned.

[limpyhobbler]

22. you think he'll block the pipeline?

[Summer Hathaway]

28. And whose puppet are you?

[Cal Carpenter]

30. To be fair, it's the economic system that allows

this moreso than a particular president. There is no democracy in capitalism, and the political system will always be aligned with private economic interests unless/until capitalism falls. These are losing battles for the activists. They may delay or slightly alter the project but in the end it will happen.

Without economic democracy, there is no political democracy. For now, we the people aren't of consequence to the ruling class, except as wage slaves.

[socialist_n_TN]

37. Yes. To the crux of the matter.........

Without economic democracy we aren't of any consequence to the ruling class. And there's only one way to gain economic democracy.

[Overseas]

10. So glad they are speaking out as we were all asked to do. Opposing dangerous oil for export.

Glad they are speaking out for the millions of us who know global warming is accelerating and the climatic changes are far more severe than was anticipated a decade ago.

Letting our president know we want our billions in subsidies to go to the alternative energy sources and conservation technologies after decades in which billions have been poured into wars to secure fossil fuels and billions in subsidies that have not been used to improve clean up technologies as we saw in BP. Nor have the billions been poured into finding less toxic ways to get oil out of shale. That process should not be approved until they can find less toxic ways to extract the oil.


Millions of us know we need to oppose dangerous schemes like the XL Pipeline shipping dangerous tar sands oil for export across the USA.

[naaman fletcher]

31. What is dangerous about tar sands oil?

More so than regular oil?

[Overseas]

38. Oil sands projects are the fastest source of greenhouse gas production in Canada

Oil sands extraction pollutes water
Oil sands extraction uses significant amounts of water (2-4.5 barrels per barrel of oil produced), which ends up in toxic tailings lagoons that have never been successfully reclaimed. An analysis using industry data estimated that these lagoons already leak over a billion gallons of contaminated water into the environment each year.

More details http://dirtyoilsands.org/thedirt/article/quick_facts

[naaman fletcher]

41. ok fine

I thought you meant there was something about the oil itself.

[stupidicus]

12. as they damn well should

it's far more important than the fiscal curb that seems to have most of his attention

[Cleita]

14. I suddenly seem to have a question about this. Maybe some DUer knows the

answer. If the oil is being transported to a refinery in Texas and then to be shipped around the world, why can't they just ship it in trucks like they do gasoline, or even on rail cars. Do we really have to have something as destructive as a pipeline? Personally, I would like to see the whole thing stopped, but if they can prevail to transport their goo across our states, why can't it be with existing transport methods? For that matter, why can't Canada just ship it to one of their ports and put it on tankards to wherever it's going? Or, do I have the whole concept of this wrong?

[gateley]

27. Good question. I'm guessing the answer, as always, is money. Somehow this will

net them higher profits.

[naaman fletcher]

33. It's just economics

It's very cheap (and safer) to put it in a pipeline. You put it in the pipeline, and by managing the pressure it goes down the pipe on its own accord. It costs fuel and manpower and equipment to truck it, and its the same with rail (although rail is less costly than trucks)

If people are worried about the environment, just wait until there are 10,000 trucks on the road moving this stuff.

[nmbluesky]

15. But Obama isn't at home

Obama is in another country

[bvar22]

16. I STAND with these protestors in spirit.

Unfortunately, the election is over,
and we no longer have a voice that those in power must pretend to hear.


Obama Asserts HE is "The Decider" on the Keystone Pipeline
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x809952

[DirkGently]

18. Good (re)start to pushing on this.

[Ash_F]

23. Even my Repub friend from Nebraska is against the pipeline. Reccing this

This is an issue for Dems to campaign on.

[flamingdem]

24. This feels kind of like a last hope tour, we need to support it

I love both McKibben and Klein!

[Overseas]

25. K&R. I do too!

[alcibiades_mystery]

34. Sometimes harder to tell who is angrier at Obama's reelection: right wing kooks, or

Common Dreams type pseudo-progressives.

In any case, we know both groups spent in ordinate amounts of time predicting that Obama would be a "one-term" president, so it's likely the same weird depression infecting both: when your "certain" political judgment smashes into the wall of reality.

Temper tantrums all around.

[flamingdem]

35. Can you elaborate?

Was it Klein and McKibben doing that or others? I don't know that much about the organization and would like to know more. I get that Obama is going to have to use up a lot of political capital with unions to nix the pipeline. In this case though I'm not sure we get a second chance to get it right, and other pathways to jobs and energy are the way to go.

[NickB79]

39. Wait, are you saying the protestors are throwing temper tantrums?

WTF?

[Nihil]

42. Didn't you know?

Anyone who isn't in lock-step with the cheerleaders for the pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-oil president
is a "Common Dreams type pseudo-progressive" ...

[humanistcafe]

40. A chance for the president to ...

... get back to his roots. Time for Barack to act like an environmentalist - a steward of the earth. One suspects that this is in his make up. Let us hope so - for the sake of mother earth.