Last Sunday’s (3/2/2014) Demonstrations of Civil Disobedience on Potential Approval of Keystone XL Tar Sands Crude Oil Pipeline to Enter U.S.

Several hundred people were arrested during a peaceful protest in Washington DC after they strapped themselves to the White House fence and laid out their demands on Pennsylvania Avenue in protest against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline.

More than 1,000 students from across the country signed up to take part in the march. They carried placards reading “climate justice now” and “don’t tarnish the earth” with the aim to convince President Obama to reject the pipeline saying it will have dire consequences for the environment if built.

Along their route, they made a stop outside the residence of US Secretary of State John Kerry to push him to recommend President Obama reject project of a 1,700-mile crude oil pipeline stretching from western Canada to the US Gulf Coast.

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This protest took place a week ago today. I could find no Mainstream TV news on the action or arrests. WORT-FM carries Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” program so that’s where I first heard of it.

Police were waiting for them in front of the White House in their buses and vans. Around 450 people were arrested in this “largest youth act of civil disobedience at the White House in a generation,” according to the environmental organizers 350.org. Prior to the detentions authorities warned the activists that blocking the sidewalk or strapping themselves to the fence would lead to their arrest.

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According to the Sierra Club, Keystone XL is the “keystone” to expanding the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. “This madness cannot continue. Treasured wild places, threatened wildlife, and the health of our climate are all at stake if the pipeline is built.”

“Our future is on the line. The climate is on the line,” said 20 year-old Aly Johnson-Kurts, from Smith College in Massachusetts. She said she had decided to get arrested on Sunday. “When do we say we’ve had enough?”

The $7 billion oil pipeline is destined to deliver high-carbon tar sands oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to a hub in Nebraska, where it would then connect with other existing pipeline networks to deliver 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries in Texas.

Critics of the project say that, in addition to the carbon-intensive impact that results from the extraction of tar sands that will only worsen the effects of climate change. The opponents also feel that the pipeline will also put communities nearby at risk of oil spills and their subsequent fallout.

Activists are also concerned that oil will go to growing economies overseas that have an increasing demand for more fossil fuels and is unlikely to lower the price of gasoline in the US.

In late January, the US State Department released a report on the project raising few objections to the environmental impact of the pipeline.

Obama blocked Keystone XL approval in January 2012, saying he needed more time for a fair review, pushing the decision to after his re-election campaign. Following the publication of the report Obama is expected to make a definitive decision on approval of Keystone XL in a matter of months.

About Mike Neuman

Identical twin; Long-time advocate of protection of our environment; Married; Father to three sons; Grandfather to one granddaughter; Born and raised in Wisconsin; Graduate of University of Wisconsin; post graduate degrees in agricultural economics and Water Resources Management fro UWMadison; Former School Crossing Guard for City of Madison; Bike to Work for 31 years with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Retired from DNR in 2007; Biked to school crossing guard site 2 X daily for 7 years retiring in 2019; in addition to being an advocate of safeguarding our environment, I am also an advocate for humane treatment of animal, children, and people in need of financial resource for humane living. I am presently a Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, Madison, Wisconsin. I oppose all long (>500 miles) distance travel (via fossil fuel burning) for nonessential purposes and all ownership of more than one home. I am opposed to militarism in any form particularly for the purpose of monetary gain. I am a Strong believer in people everywhere having the right to speak their minds openly, without any fear of reprisal, regarding any concerns; especially against those in authority who are not acting for the public good?in a timely fashion and in all countries of the world not just the U S.. My identical twin, Pat, died in June 2009. He was fired from his job with the National Weather Service despite having a long and successful career as a flood forecaster with the Kansas City National Weather Service. He took a new position in the Midwest Regional Office in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, Pat’s work for the NWS went sour after he began to see the evidence for concern about rising global temperatures shortly after relocating to Minneapolis, and how they appeared to effect of flooding on the Red River that flows out of Canada before entering the U.S. in North Dakota. . Pat and I conversed on a regular basis with other scientists on the Yahoo Group named “Climate Concern “ and by personal email. The NWS denied his recommendation to give his public presentation o n his research at the “Minneapolis Mall of America” in February 2000, which deeply affected h,im. I will h He strongly believed the information ought be shared with the public to which I concurred. That was the beginning of the vendetta against my brother, Patrick J. Neuman, for speaking strongly of the obligations the federal government was responsible for accurately informing the citizenry. A way great similar response to my raising the issue of too many greenhouse gases being emitted by drivers of vehicles on Wisconsin highway system, my immediate supervisors directed: “that neither global warming, climate change nor the long term impacts upon the natural resources of Wisconsin from expansion of the state highway system were to be any part of my job requirements, and that I must not communicate, nor in a memorandum to all the bureau, shall any person who works in the same bureau I do communicate with me, neither verbally on the phone, by email.

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