August 30th, 2011
From Green Right Now Reports
The two-week long tar sands protest at the White House has resumed in full force. After a day’s break to give Hurricane Irene passage, dozens of people lined up Monday and Tuesday to voice grave doubts about the proposed 1,700 mile pipeline that would carry dirty bitumen oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
Daryl Hannah lends her celebrity to the tar sands protest.
Picketers are sending a message to President Obama that stopping the Keystone XL pipeline would help America kick its oil addiction and protect its natural water sources.
Opponents of the pipeline say it must be stopped to slow the fossil-fuel consumption that’s overheating the planet and insure the safety of the Ogallala Aquifer over which the pipeline will travel against any land and water-polluting spills. The giant aquifer supplies drinking water to millions in the heartland states and would be jeopardized by a bitumen oil line, they say. A similar pipeline, which travels about half the distance, has already leaked 12 times since it was completed a year ago.
Keystone XL is slated for approval in November, unless President Obama denies the permit to pipeline owner TransCanada. Last week, the US State Department issued its initial approval of the project, saying that estimates show the pipe line would not leak for thousands of years.
Canadian tar sands destroy boreal forest.
Whether it will be a leaky or not-leaky pipeline is only part of the dispute. Environmentalists point out that extracting tar sands oil destroys vast forests, requires millions of gallons of water and emits as much as three times the carbon pollution as regular oil drilling operations. Pictures of the Canadian tar sands operations tend to support their argument, revealing an eerie moon scape of steel gray land. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups refer to tar sands fuel as “the world’s dirtiest oil.”
More than 500 people have been arrested since the rolling peaceful protests began ten days ago. Those arrested by U.S. Park Police for gathering in front of the White House include a range of young and older Americans from affected states, well-known environmentalists like Bill McKibben and noted NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and a handful of celebrities.
Yesterday the head of Greenpeace, Phil Radford, was arrested, as was Daryl Hannah.
Hannah, who drives a bio-fueled car, spends free time at green conferences and has stood up against mountain top removal at coal mining actions, has pledged to use her celebrity to help bring attention to climate change.
The regular Americans and lesser known individuals who took a day or two off work to protest Keystone XL appear equally committed. They’ve included a loosely organized group of grandmothers from Montana and leaders of regional grassroots efforts like Bold Nebraska.
One of several religious leaders who took part and was arrested, Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and editor at Sojourners magazine explained the motivations of a group of religious leaders who took part:
“…the point was not to get arrested. The point was to make of our lives a living witness. To make it clear that climate change has gone too far and we are no longer going to stand idly by while our sisters, brothers, and home planet are torn apart by oil companies.
“I’ve been arrested numerous times – but for me, it’s always a sacred act. As a Catholic, I see it as public liturgy. We make a symbolic sacrifice in order to tear open the the curtains of heaven and shine that light on places of injustice.”
