More than 35,000 Rally to Protect Our Climate

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

On February 17, more than 35,000 braved the icy temperatures to take a message of hope for our climate to the President's doorstep. Marching in a human pipeline around the White House, people from across America and Canada also showed what real solidarity and neighborliness looks like.

Good neighbors don't push dirty energy projects such as the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that hurt communities, water and climate. Good neighbors and allies work together to bring leadership to tackle climate change and build a clean energy future. Good neighbors build solidarity around a common vision of the world we want for ourselves and our children: one without the threats of ever worsening climate change causing droughts, wildfires, floods and violent storms. That solidarity exists with the people of Canada and yet is overshadowed in the press by the latest attempt to push the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in our national interest for many reasons and should not be built. This is something that both Canadians and Americans are saying. At the rally today, Crystal Lameman from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Alberta put it very well: "We can't eat money and we can't drink oil." And Chief Jacqueline Thomas of the Yinka Dene Alliance in British Columbia said, "We have faith that people will do the right thing to protect Mother Earth."

Over time, the oil industry has found many ways to push the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. We have seen wildly exaggerated jobs numbers that falsely raised hope in areas that need work. We have seen arguments about energy security which were unbelievable considering this is a pipeline meant mostly for export. We have seen claims that if the US didn't take the tar sands it would go to Asia even though Canadians were saying "no" to pipelines to their west coast. And the latest? Today, a New York Times article focused on the foreign relations dynamic of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline decision. Posing the decision on this dirty energy project as something that is a choice between the environmental community and Canada is a false way of looking at it. Several points are worth considering:

• Canada and the United States have been friends and allies for a long time and will continue to be friends and allies long into the future. A single project that is in the interest of the oil industry, but not of Americans or Canadians, will not damage that relationship.
• Canada is already our largest supplier of oil. And Canada is our number one trade partner. A rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will not erase the massive trade connections that we already enjoy.
• The current Canadian federal government unapologetically speaks for the tar sands oil industry. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is from Alberta and has moved Canada and the province of Alberta away from earlier Canadian goals of fighting climate change to developing the economy based on oil.
• Many provinces in Canada are concerned about expansion of tar sands and are working hard to diversify their energy sources with clean energy, as well as with energy efficiency and conservation.
• The general public in Canada is very concerned about climate change and many people and First Nations in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec who have experienced tar sands extraction, refining and the threat of tar sands pipelines are raising concerns in the same way that we in the United States are.

A rejection of the tar sands pipelines and of tar sands expansion is in the best interest of both Americans and Canadians. It will show tremendous leadership on the part of both of our countries to move together to tackle the climate change challenge by rejecting dirty fuels and moving forward with clean energy.

So let me come back to the wise words of Chief Jacqueline Thomas, immediate past Chief of the Saik'uz First Nation in British Columbia and co-founder Yinka Dene Alliance ("People of the Earth"): The Yinka Dene Alliance of British Columbia is seeing the harm from climate change to our peoples and our waters. We see the threat of taking tar sands out of the Earth and bringing it through our territories and over our rivers. The harm being done to people in the tar sands region can no longer be Canada's dirty secret. We don't have the billions of dollars that industry has. But we do have our faith that people will do the right thing to protect Mother Earth. The Forward on Climate Rally shows that we are not alone in the fight to stop tar sands expansion and tackle climate change.

Chief Jacqueline Thomas, Saik'uz First Nation, British Columbia

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/more_than_35000_canadian

President Obama, Did You Hear Us?: Let's Move #ForwardOnClimate!

Elizabeth Shope, Advocate, Washington, D.C.

Today, I joined a crowd of more than 35,000 people including thousands of NRDC members and activists at the #ForwardOnClimate rally calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, set carbon standards for dirty power plants, and move forward with clean energy solutions.

Photo credit: Sung Hwang, NRDC.

Hip Hop Caucus President & CEO Reverend Lennox Yearwood MCed the speaker program, and kept the crowd pumped up despite the frigid temperatures and strong, icy winds. Before setting out on our march around the White House, we heard from inspiring speakers including NRDC Trustee and Green for All Founder Van Jones; Chief Jacqueline Thomas, Immediate past Chief of the Saik'uz First Nation in British Columbia and co-founder of the Yinka Dene Alliance; Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation; Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; Latinovations Founder and Dewey Squre Group Principal Maria Cardona; Tom Steyer, Investor and founder of the Center for the Next Generation; Mike Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director; and 350.org President Bill McKibben.

Van Jones reminded us why all 35,000 of us were here at this rally: "You elected this President," he told us. "You made history... he needs to give you a chance to have a future. Stop being chumps." In addition to calling on us to continue fighting for our future, he called on President Obama to make the right decision, saying "all the good work you've done will be wiped away if you approve Keystone XL," and that approving the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be like jabbing a dirty needle into the U.S.

Crystal Lameman shared with us how tar sands development is affecting her community, and how industry is attempting to greenwash their dirty business. "Don't be fooled by their idea of what reclamation is," she said. "We can't eat money and we can't drink oil."

Keystone XL isn't the only tar sands pipeline currently under consideration that would facilitate an expansion of the tar sands - it is one of several. Chief Jacqueline Thomas spoke to us about Enbridge's Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline to British Columbia and the associated tanker traffic that would put the lands and waters of many First Nations at risk. More than 100 First Nations along the pipeline and tanker route have said their lands and waters are not for sale-that they will not allow the Enbridge Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline or similar tar sands projects to cross their lands, territories and watersheds, or the ocean migration routes of Fraser River salmon. Chief Jacqueline Thomas's speech highlighted the importance of protecting our lands and waters: "If we destroy the Earth, we destroy ourselves."

Maria Cardona's speech brought home the urgency of not just rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and curbing tar sands extraction, but of regulating our dirty power plants: "For millions of Americans, particularly minorities, clean air regulations are life-saving regulations."

We're going to have to keep fighting, though, and keep urging Congress and President Obama to stand up to polluters. As Senator Whitehouse told us, "Congress is sleepwalking through this crisis, and it's time to wake up... We're going to have the president's back and he's going to have our back... Let us be unshakeable."

Today, we were not just unshakeable but unified - young people and old people, Nebraska ranchers, members of First Nations and Native American tribes, environmental groups, labor activists, doctors and nurses, entrepreneurs, investors, and many more.

We marched. We danced to the marching bands that mixed themselves in with the crowds. We chanted. (And I have a favorite new chant from today: "Hey Obama don't be silly, we don't want no oil spilly.") And we have hope.

The way Tom Steyer put it in his remarks at the rally, it may not be easy, but there really is no choice: "The Keystone [XL] pipeline is not a good investment. We can't afford 40 more years of dirty energy. Today we have to dare to say no to the Keystone [XL] pipeline and create a clean energy future."

So President Obama, I hope you're listening- because it's time to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, set carbon standards for dirty power plants, and move #ForwardOnClimate.

Photo credit: Josh Mogerman, NRDC.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/eshope/president_obama_did_you_hear_

Top Three Things We Urge Obama to Do to Curb Climate Change--And Without Waiting for Congress

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Most people don't think chocolate factories or hardware stores have much to do with climate change. Yet residents of Queens, New York have discovered that extreme weather can devastate local businesses. Hurricane Sandy swamped the Madelaine Chocolate Company, for instance, and two months later, owners were still clearing out mud and suspending pay for 450 employees. A nearby hardware store won't reopen until February and other businesses don't know if they will reopen at all.

Neighborhood residents are left reeling. "It's like anyone who didn't lose his home lost his job," Juan Colon told the New York Times.

When I first started working on climate change a decade ago, we spoke in terms of distant forecasts and long-range impacts. Now we simply look out the window to see what climate change can do to our communities. As demonstrated by the drought that gripped more than half the nation last summer or the intense storms that pummeled towns from Duluth to Queens, climate change is upending lives and costing billions of dollars.

We no longer have the luxury of time. We must act now to prevent more Americans from feeling the pain of lost jobs, destroyed homes, and shuttered businesses.

That is why NRDC and 68 other civic, healthcare, labor, and environmental groups are calling on President Obama to use his second term to take bold and decisive action on climate change.

This week we sent a letter outlining the top three things the president can do to defuse the climate threat. Right now. Using existing authority. And without movement in Congress.

First, we urge President Obama to elevate the issue of climate change in the public discourse. As my colleague Dan Lashof explains on his blog, the way the president talks about climate change has the ability to rally public support and build political will for climate solutions.

Hurricane Sandy debris in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Photo Credit: Sunset Parkerpix.

Second, we urge President Obama to use the Environmental Protection Agency's existing authority to limit carbon pollution from existing power plants-our nation's largest source of global warming pollution. NRDC has proposed a flexible, cost-effective plan for how the EPA can set standards that will reduce carbon pollution by 34 percent by 2026 compared to 2005 levels and generate between $25 and $60 billion in benefits by 2020.

Third, we urge President Obama to reject the use of the dirtiest fuels. Producing tar sands oil, for instance, generates three times as much greenhouse gas emissions as conventional crude-and that's even before we burn it in cars and trucks. As my colleague Susan Casey-Lefkowitz writes in her latest post, we can't rely on dirty tar sands oil without threatening our health and communities. That's why the president must reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

These three steps put America on a path toward climate stability. They will shield more Americans from devastating drought, heat waves, and storms. And they will unleash more investment in clean energy resources that generate jobs and make our air safer to breathe.

But we have to act now to reap the most benefits, because climate change isn't waiting. According to a NOAA report released on Tuesday, 2012 was the hottest year on record for the continental United States. Our climate is mutating before our eyes, and we must arrest its destructive changes.

President Obama recognizes this reality. He has already acted to cut carbon pollution from cars and new power plants and he recently said he would make climate change a top priority for his new term. He can begin by taking these three steps.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/top_three_things_we_urge_o