Next week is going to be a big one -- President Obama is giving his State of the Union speech, and we're hitting the home stretch of the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
To get fired up for what's next, check out the front-page New York Times article that JUST came out about an hour ago. The headline: "Keystone XL Pipeline Fight Lifts Environmental Movement." The article is a testament to your hard work, and all that we've accomplished together. Click here to check it out.
But before we jump into the next phase of this fight, I hope those of you who are CREDO customers will help out with a quick opportunity to support this growing movement.
CREDO is a cell phone company, alternative credit card provider, and a social justice campaigning powerhouse. They’ve been our partners every step of the way in the fight to stop Keystone XL -- and as the team behind the Keystone XL pledge of resistance, alongside RAN and The Other 98%, will be a key part of finishing it. Over the last few years, they have helped turn out thousands of people for many major actions on Keystone XL and a diverse range of other issues.
In addition to mobilizing the grassroots, CREDO helps fund hundreds of progressive groups -- and the way they do it is pretty cool. Every month, CREDO members vote to distribute funds among three progressive nonprofits. So, if you’re a CREDO customer -- like me, for instance -- then you have an easy way to help out 350.org with just a few clicks.
Over the next week, CREDO members can cast a vote to raise funds for 350.org as we scale up our efforts together. The voting is free and only takes a few seconds -- we’re excited to be part of it and we hope you’ll help out by voting for 350.org.
Note: this voting offer is solely for CREDO customers, which we realize many of you may not be. If you aren’t, don’t stress it -- we've got big plans in the works, so get your marching shoes ready. But if you are a CREDO customer, we hope you’ll cast a vote for us -- though we should say that the other two groups you can vote for, Mother Jones and Planned Parenthood, both do excellent work to build a more progressive world.
(FYI: I just cast my ballot right now and it took approximately three seconds.)
Thanks, and talk more very very soon,
May
P.S. I also wanted to note an important development: a few days ago, the Southern leg of Keystone XL started making deliveries of tar sands oil to refineries in Texas. The Northern leg is still President Obama’s call to make, with huge implications for our climate and water. You can learn more about the next steps of resistance to the Southern pipeline by clicking here.
350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by making a donation
Keystone XL Pipeline Fight Lifts Environmental Movement
WASHINGTON
— Environmentalists have spent the past two years fighting the Keystone
XL pipeline: They have built a human chain around the White House,
clogged the State Department’s public comment system with more than a
million emails and letters, and gotten themselves arrested at protests
across the country.
But
as bad as they argue the 1,700-mile pipeline would be for the planet,
Keystone XL has been a boon to the environmental movement. While it
remains unclear whether President Obama will approve the project, both
sides agree that the fight has changed American environmental politics.
“I
think it would be naïve for any energy infrastructure company to think
that this would be a flash in the pan,” said Alexander J. Pourbaix,
president of energy and oil pipelines at TransCanada, the company that
has been trying to get a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline since 2008.
Environmentalists
want to stop the transport of 800,000 barrels a day of heavy crude oil
from tar sands formations in Canada to Texas refineries, and an oil
extraction process — effectively a strip-mining operation in
once-pristine forests in Alberta — that emits more greenhouse gases than
other forms of production. Proponents of the Keystone XL project say
that the oil will come out of the ground with or without a new pipeline
and that other methods of transport, like rail, cause more pollution.
They point out that TransCanada began operations on Wednesday on a
southern pipeline segment that connects to existing pipelines to provide
a route from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.
Although
some critics say the environmental movement has made a strategic error
by focusing so much energy on the pipeline, no one disputes that the
issue has helped a new breed of environmental organizations build a
mostly young army eager to donate money and time. The seven-year-old
email list of 350.org, an organization
that focuses on climate change, has more than doubled to 530,000 people
since the group began fighting the pipeline in August 2011. In addition,
about 76,000 people have signed a “pledge of resistance”
sponsored by seven liberal advocacy groups in which they promise to
risk arrest in civil disobedience if a State Department analysis,
expected this year, points toward approval of the pipeline.
The
Keystone XL project has also raised the profile of a diverse generation
of environmental leaders, like the activist Bill McKibben, a former
writer for The New Yorker and founder of 350.org, and the billionaire
venture capitalist Thomas F. Steyer, who is estimated to have
contributed at least $1 million to the movement and has starred in four
90-second ads opposing the pipeline. Not least, it has united national
and local environmental groups that usually fight for attention and
resources.
“Over
the last 18 months, I think there was this recognition that stopping
the pipeline is, in fact, important,” said Ross Hammond, a senior
campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “But it has also brought a huge number of people into the movement.”
That
movement, Mr. McKibben said in an interview, “looks the way we want the
energy system to look: not a few big power plants, but a million solar
panels all tied together.”
Politically,
the draw of Keystone XL comes from its physical presence. It is far
easier, environmental activists say, to rally people around something as
vivid as a pipeline bisecting the United States than, say, around
cap-and-trade legislation that would have forced industry to pay a price
for its carbon emissions. The legislation failed in Congress in 2009.
“When we’re able to focus on distinct, concrete projects, we tend to win,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.
“And when we tend to focus on more obscure policies or places where we
need action from Congress, we tend to stall, like every other thing
tends to stall.”
The
pipeline has been a particular hit with small donors, especially as
environmental organizations turn more to protests, fund-raisers said.
Last year, the Sierra Club raised $1 million in six weeks for a major
rally in Washington. About $100,000 of that came from contributions of
less than $1,000.
“This
is not one of our usual long-term campaigns,” said Jackie Brown, the
Sierra Club’s chief advancement officer. “This was an emerging
upswelling of support.”
Wealthier
donors are also opening their wallets. Betsy Taylor, a longtime
environmental fund-raiser, said her network of contributors was
increasingly supporting the more aggressive campaigns run by groups like
350.org and Bold Nebraska, a shift away from the environmental research and policy organizations that have traditionally drawn such contributions.
Keystone
XL — the XL stands for express line — would be a shortcut to the Gulf
of Mexico as well as an extension of TransCanada’s existing Keystone
pipeline, which runs from Alberta to Nebraska, with small branches to
Illinois and Oklahoma. Keystone XL would be a far more direct route
across the United States. Keystone consists of a three-foot-diameter
pipe that is three feet underground. Keystone XL would also be three
feet in diameter, but four feet underground.
Initially,
opposition to Keystone XL consisted of scattered people and groups
along the proposed route of the pipeline, including indigenous tribes in
Alberta. The fight went national in June 2011 when James E. Hansen, a
former NASA climate scientist, wrote an open letter
calling the pipeline “game over for the climate” and urged people to
write to Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state. (Because
the project crosses an international boundary, it is subject to approval
by the State Department.)
Mr.
McKibben, the author of numerous books about climate, decided to use
350.org to campaign against the pipeline. That fall, he urged his
members to commit civil disobedience in front of the White House.
“I
remember when I heard the call for civil disobedience, I thought,
‘Yeah, right, you’ll get like 40 people to show up,' ” said Mr. Hammond
of Friends of the Earth. “And then, bam!” Over a two-week period, about
1,200 people were arrested at the White House.
Stephanie
Kimball, 30, a Wisconsin dentist, said in a recent telephone interview
that she had been “trying to figure out where to jump in” to the
environmental cause when a talk by activists arrested in 2011 inspired
her to volunteer as a local coordinator for 350.org. She said she was
also working to stop a pipeline by the Canadian corporation Enbridge.
To
counter the campaign, TransCanada has had to run television and radio
ads to promote the jobs that the pipeline could provide. Industry allies
like the American Petroleum Institute have also been running ads.
If
Mr. Obama approves the Keystone XL pipeline, Mr. Brune of the Sierra
Club said, it will be “the Vietnam of his presidency.” But, he added,
environmentalists’ efforts will hardly have been for nothing.
“If
you lose on this,” said Mike Casey, a consultant for Mr. Steyer, “this
infrastructure doesn’t go away. It remains deployable and passionate.”
