Monday night was a night of action all over the country to protest the newly released environmental analysis that the proposed Keystone Pipeline will not increase global warming. What hasn’t been mentioned is that said analysis was written by a company with deep ties to the oil industry and the company that wants to build the pipeline.
I attended the protest in front of the Federal Building in downtown Seattle. To my surprise, despite the near freezing temperature and a stiff breeze coming off the bay to contribute to a wind chill, this event was well attended. I did a rough count of between two and three hundred.
Unfortunately my fingers were too frozen to take notes so I didn’t get names of the various speakers who spoke against the pipeline. We sang songs led by the Seattle Labor Chorus and The Raging Grannies.
This is a link to a petition to let Sec. of State Kerry know that we don’t want the pipeline. http://nextgenclimate.org/petitions/sec-kerry
The pipeline would cross more than 1,000 bodies of water across three states and over 800 miles threatening drinking water. We all saw what recently happened in Virginia. The communities effected still cannot drink or bathe in their water. Further, the aforementioned report doesn’t account for the big-carbon footprint caused by the byproduct of the refining process used as a cheap coal alternative: petroleum coke.
Currently a human who blocks construction of a tar sands pipeline for ten hours can receive two years in hail. A corporate person spilling one million gallons of tar sands and causing $1 billion in damages gets zero jail time. The company which caused the VA catastrophe has just filed for bankruptcy to avoid having to pay for cleanup or potential lawsuits.
If you are outraged by this, I urge you to sign the petition and take action. If Seattle residents can stand outside in 35 degree weather for two hours, or if you can sit outside watching a football game for the exact amount of time, it’s time to take part in what little democracy we have left. We cannot sit idly by while corporations destroy the earth.
