Hundreds of Youth Activists Arrested at White House for Keystone XL Protest
398 youth activists
were arrested Sunday in front of the White House, after staging a
“die-in” protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The
protesters marched from the Georgetown University site of President
Barack Obama’s 2013 climate speech
to the street in front of Secretary of State John Kerry’s house before
arriving at the White House.Kerry is slated to make a decision on on whether the pipeline — which will unlock access to Canadian tar sands and have a carbon footprint equivalent to fifty new coal-fired power plants — is in the national interest. President Obama is responsible for the final determination.
“We are trying to escalate as much as we can,” Michael Greenberg, a Columbia University sophomore who helped organize Sunday’s protest, told the National Journal’s Ben Geman. “We are not playing softball with the president any more.”
“Young people are tired of watching a president who ran on the promise of ‘ending the tyranny of oil’ keep caving to the fossil fuel industry,” wrote Jamie Henn, Communications Director for 350 Action, at MSNBC.com
There is a Flickr set of XLDissent photographs, and Annie-Rose Strasser at Climate Progress has compiled photos from Twitter of the march and protest.
“An entire movement has thrown itself into in this Keystone fight, from local frontline groups to big national green organizations,” said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. “But this weekend shows the power and bravery of some of the most crucial elements: young people, and activists who understand the centrality of environmental justice.”
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What You Need to Know About the Keystone XL Pipeline
The project has become politically charged. You’ve no doubt heard the talking points on both sides of the issue. But digging past the politics, what’s really at stake? Who stands to win and who stands to lose if the pipeline is approved?
To answer those questions, and others, Bill Moyers & Company put together an essential KXL reader. To read it, Click Here.
Comment on the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Department of State:
The comment period is open until Friday, March 7, 2014. To submit your comment, Click Here.
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On Sunday, 398 opponents of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline were arrested in front of the White House in what could be the largest youth sit-in on the environment in a generation.
Students from more than 80 colleges rallied at Georgetown University and then marched to the White House, wearing mock "hazmat suits" and holding banners with slogans like "Keep your oil out of my soil" and "Even Voldemort Hates Tar Sands."
President Obama is expected to issue a decision in the next few months on the pipeline, which would transport 830,000 barrels of crude every day from Alberta's oil sands to the U.S. gulf coast.
To hear Democracy Now's Amy Goodman speak to American University student Deirdre Shelly about why she was arrested on Sunday and the growing student-led movement to convince universities, colleges and cities to divest from fossil fuel companies, click here.
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Hundreds of Keystone protesters arrested at White House
By Emily Stephenson(Reuters) - Police arrested hundreds of young people protesting the Keystone XL project on Sunday, as demonstrators fastened themselves with plastic ties to the White House fences and called for U.S. President Barack Obama to reject the controversial oil pipeline.
Participants, who mostly appeared to be college-aged, held signs reading: "There is no planet B" and "Columbia says no to fossil fuels," referring to the university in New York City.
Another group, several of whom were clad in white jumpsuits splattered with black ink that was meant to represent oil, lay down on a black tarp spread out on Pennsylvania Avenue to stage a mock spill.
Organizers estimated 1,000 people protested and said several hundred agreed to risk arrest by refusing to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House. Citing U.S. Park Police figures, the organizers said later that almost 400 people were arrested.
"If the Democratic Party wants to keep our vote, they better make sure President Obama rejects that pipeline," said Nick Stracco, a 23-year-old student at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Canadian energy firm TransCanada Corp is behind the proposed pipeline that would carry crude from Alberta's oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The project already weathered a State Department environmental review, which was required because the project would cross international borders. Several other agencies also are doing reviews, and Obama has the final say.
Environmental groups, which fear oil spills along the pipeline and say it could hasten climate change, have staged a number of protests at the White House over Keystone.
Supporters of the $5.4 billion pipeline say it would create thousands of temporary construction jobs and improve U.S. energy security.
"Today's protest represents a fringe minority of people against any use of fossil fuels," said Matt Dempsey of Oil Sands Fact Check. "This extreme position is well outside the American mainstream. Even President Obama says we need an "all of the above" approach to energy. As a result, today's protest does little but expose the extreme nature of these last remaining Keystone XL opponents."
Sunday's event, which was planned by students with support from environmental groups 350.org and the Energy Action Coalition, began with a rally at Georgetown University, where Obama unveiled a climate change plan last summer.
The group marched to the White House, where police began arresting protesters, pulling them aside in small groups into tents set up on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Organizers said they intended to remind the White House that young people are a key voting demographic of the president's party and their peers do not want to inherit environmental damage caused by current leaders.
"Our future is on the line. The climate is on the line," said Aly Johnson-Kurts, 20, who is taking a year off from Smith College in Massachusetts. She said she had decided to get arrested on Sunday. "When do we say we've had enough?"
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