Over then next 24 hours, our crew at 350.org is going to be working hard to compile these images and get them out to the public and press. As Bill McKibben wrote yesterday, It’s time for each of us to get involved in the full-on fight between misinformation and truth.”

In 2011, we saw the power every day people can have when we work together to stop a devastating project like the Keystone XL pipeline. But Keystone XL isn’t the only major fossil fuel project that the industry is pushing. From building a major new coal plant in Kosovo to fracking in the north-eastern United States, the fossil fuel industry is going to any length to keep this dirty energy economy going.

One of the biggest fights here in the US is over mountaintop removal — the dangerous form of coal mining that involves literally blowing off the top of mountains to get at the coal underneath. Blair Mountain in West Virginia has become ground zero for the struggle to end mountaintop removal — a Keystone XL style symbol of an industry run amok.

We just got the press release below from our allies at Friends of Blair Mountain, the Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and others who are working to save this important national treasure. According to some reports on the ground, it seems like Blair might be under threat once again (for a detailed look at all the different news coming out, check out this article by Ken Ward). Please take a minute to read about the latest threat to the mountain and share it with your friends to help spread the word:

In his speech this morning, Donahue said:

“There is no legitimate reason, none at all, to subject it to further delay,” Donohue said in his annual address on the state of business and the economy. “Real leaders understand that Americans can have big differences in philosophy but still find common ground. They wouldn’t tell us that solutions have to wait until after the election.”

No, Tom, real leaders stand up to Big Oil and protect the American people from scams like Keystone XL, a fuse to the “largest carbon bomb in North America,” the Canadian tar sands. But it’s no surprise, I guess, that the US Chamber of Commerce isn’t concerned about the climate or the interests of everyday Americans. As Bill McKibben wrote this morning,

“The US Chamber of Commerce, two years ago, filed a legal brief arguing that if the planet warmed humans could alter their physiology’ to cope with the heat. So I guess there’s no reason for them to worry about the climate impacts of opening up the second-biggest pool of carbon on the planet. For those of us who plan to keep our current anatomy, however, their assault on basic environmental review is one more sign they’re nothing but a front for the fossil fuel lobby.”

It’s no real surprise that the Chamber of Commerce is pushing Keystone XL, but it does help clarify what we’ve been saying all along: this pipeline is a scam and the only reason politicians are pushing it is because they’re on the payroll of Big Oil and front groups like the US Chamber.

In a news analysis published today, the New York Times concludes that while the tax bill provision on Keystone XL will likely kill the project, the victory will do little to stop future pipelines, stall tar sands development, or slow down global warming. After all, the world needs energy, the tar sands have it, and therefore, they’re going to be developed, atmosphere be damned.

It’s a compelling argument that’s been made over and over again during the fight against Keystone XL. Here’s why it’s wrong.

Time and again, public opposition has stopped things that made “economic” sense. That’s every mile of the Colorado isn’t dammed, why we haven’t cut down every last inch of Brazilian rainforest, or, to pull from another time period, why the British Empire finally abolished the slave trade even though it was great economics. As it turns out, there are other forces in the world than supply and demand. Just because morality is hard to quantify, doesn’t mean it can’t change history now and then.

As political opposition to the tar sands grows, it’s going to be nearly impossible for oil companies to build the pipelines they need to get tar sands oil out of landlocked Alberta. You thought the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline was contentious? Just check out the struggle over the Enbridge Northern Gateway, a pipeline that was slated to be built from the tar sands out to the coast of British Columbia. Thanks to the opposition from indigenous communities along the entire pipeline route and people up and down the coast, the Canadian government has been forced to stall the project for yet another year of environmental review. The delay, along with the news on Keystone, has fired up the anti-tar sands movement even more. When Goliath teeters, David puts another stone in the sling-shot.

The pipeline victories also create the momentum necessary to push for the larger, structural changes that can really shut down the tar sands, like ending fossil fuel subsidies, rolling out a clean energy economy, and putting a price on carbon. In the United States, the fight against Keystone XL made tar sands a (dirty) household name for the first time. Over 500,000 people signed petitions against the pipeline, tens of thousands of people to part in demonstrations, and over 1,000 people were arrested over the course of the campaign. At places like 350.org, we’re busy brainstorming with supporters across the country about how to quickly get into these larger fights.

The New York Times is right: if it was let up to economics, tar sands development (and the planetary destruction that comes with it) would be inevitable. Good thing we’re not leaving it up to economics.

Local victories against Coal: Maharashtra
by Chaitanya Kumar

We recently finished the Naya Swaraj cycle yatra from Sevagram in Maharashtra to Mumbai. The 850 KM cycle rally aimed at highlighting the negative impacts of fossil fuels on our agriculture and understanding the need for organic farming. While the 20 day journey was an enriching experience in understanding the diversity of issues that Indian farmers face, one of the issues that continues to trouble most of us is the growing cluster of coal fired thermal power plants in India and especially the state of Maharashtra.

The numbers speak for themselves. In the state of Maharashtra, 38 thermal power plants are planned to be set up in the coming few years. That makes it a total of 32376 MW of coal fired power being proposed for one single state and is a little more than a sixth of India’s total installed power generation capacity as of 2011. These power projects are being set up by big companies both private and public like the Reliances, Maharashtra Genco (MAHAGENCO), TATAs, NTPC, LANCOs. Many other small  companies are foraying into power generation after observing the state and central Govt’s lack of attention to environmental and social harms of coal.

But if recent developments in India are to go by, then the road ahead for most coal fired power stations is going to be much more difficult than one predicted. Quite recently a 4000 MW Ultra mega power project in the Raigad district got scrapped after local residents opposed the project tooth and nail over land acquisition issues. Strong advocacy and campaigning amongst farmers in the region by local movements helped raise awareness over the issue and moved people to act in order to protect their land and natural resources. Another recent victory comes from the Wardha district of the state where local movements encouraged by groups like the Vidharbha Environmental Action Group successfully won a court hearing in against Lanco and their corrupt environmental practices.

The company in connivance with the state pollution control board manipulated the minutes of the public hearing (a mandatory exercise to determine the support for the industrial project). The judges revealed that basic public hearing norms were violated and those who opposed the project were beaten by company hired goons and also state police men. The cancellation of the hearing now forces the company to organize another hearing soon after which the environmental appraisal committee will take a call on the project.

As a landmark judgement in environmental cases in India, this is another example of peoples victories against coal. The struggles are never easy but thanks to improved advocacy, information availability and strategic campaigning by a few individuals and groups, people are being waking up to the reality that its takes nothing less than a fight to safeguard our environment and our future.

350.org is learning from these amazing stories and aiming to strengthen the movement against coal and carbon emissions across India and the world. Similar struggles are taking place across the India and we support and work in solidarity with these movements for the safety of our future generations.

Over 100 people visit an Obama for America office to push the President to the stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo credit: Shadia Fayne Wood. 

As someone working with Tar Sands Action, one of the groups working on Keystone XL, I wanted to put out a few quick responses. Over the last few months, the Keystone XL pipeline has transformed from a regional fight led by organizers along the route and indigenous communities in Alberta, to what the Washington Post referred to as “a headache for the Obama Administration.” That transformation in itself is a huge accomplishment: most pipelines or fossil fuel projects — just look at the opening of Powder River Basin for coal mining — happen in the dead of night without much opposition. To drag Keystone XL into the spotlight and turn it into a national bellwether is a testament to the hard work of not just “greens” (oh, the media’s love for slightly derogatory catch-alls) but of Nebraska ranchers, Texas farmers, environmentalists, young people, indigenous peoples, and many more.

The odds are still tilting towards approval, but that’s not much of a surprise when you have the  Canadian government, Big Oil, conservative press, the State Department, and status-quo commentators pushing the pipeline. What’s incredible is that we’ve got a fighting chance to stop this thing, an opening that will only get wider over the months to come as protests continue across the country.

Let’s take a moment to break down the specific arguments of the “analysts” that McGowan cites (you’ll recognize one of them as Ted Nordhaus, the author of “The Death of Environmentalism” and the “bad-boy” who’s made a career of criticizing environmentalists –come on, I mean, Bjorn Lomborg was all over that in like 1997, man).

Argument number one, the pipeline creates jobs so you can’t criticize it and should just let it get built. That’s ludicrous. Let’s break it down in simple terms: you build the pipeline and get 5,000 – 20,000 jobs, but in the process trash the environment, trash the climate, keep us addicted to oil, give hand-outs to groups like the Koch Brothers who oppose clean energy investments, and risk an oil spill over the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies 30% of the water for Nebraska’s $17 billion agricultural industry. Or, you stop the pipeline, lose the 5,000 jobs, but help build the political movement necessary to beat back Big Oil, put a price on carbon, and make the investments we need to unleash a clean energy economy that could create millions of jobs across this country. Hmmm.

Damn right we need jobs, but not jobs that put our country’s future at stake and hold back the changes that could put millions of people to work. When a drug dealer offers you a job selling crack, you don’t thank him. You start organizing with your neighbors to get drugs out of the community. Or to use a more appropriate example: when you’re in a union and you get offered a few thousand jobs by a pipeline company with ties to the Koch Brothers, the same guys who spent millions to decimate your right to organize in Wisconsin and across the country, you might want to think twice before swallowing that poison pill.

Second, according to Nordhaus environmentalists haven’t put out an alternative to the pipeline. Come on, what do you think the environmental community was doing for the last three years? Remember that big fight for a climate bill? There are loads of reports, studies, plans, models, graphs, you name it, outlining how the US could transition to a clean energy economy. I don’t even know where to start hyperlinking. What about this plan for the entire planet to go to 100% clean energy from Scientific America. Or, say this website for Nordhaus’s own Breakthrough Institute where he’s helped publish all sorts of ideas, some less wacky than others. Nordhaus may not consider himself an “environmentalist” anymore, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he wants to still be on the team trying to save the planet. The truth of the matter is, it’s naive to think that just a bunch of plans and papers are going to be enough to get the US off fossil fuels. It’s going to take a movement strong enough to create dramatic political change. And that’s what the Keystone XL fight is all about.

Third, Obama can’t stop the pipeline because he has to win the election. Just the opposite. Think about it: who is Obama alienating by standing up to Big Oil and turning down a dangerous oil pipeline that trashes the planet? Definitely a bunch of conservatives and probably a few moderates who really do buy the bogus jobs claims from TransCanada on the pipeline. But most of those people probably weren’t going to vote for him anyway. And just as important, they weren’t going to work or donate to him. Remember, elections aren’t just won on votes, they’re won on enthusiasm. As Obama said himself in 2008, you win by creating a movement of people across the country. The Obama Administration is already struggling to connect with his base, be it Latinos who are worried about record numbers of deportations or LGBT people who are thankful for the right to serve, but still want the basic human dignity to love and be married. Adding environmentalists to the list isn’t a good election strategy.

Look, no one has said that a bunch of “greens” are going to go vote for Rick Perry. Of course not. The message is, “President Obama, denying this pipeline will send a jolt of electricity through your base and help us believe in, work for, and donate to you again.” Just yesterday, I was in an Obama for America office here in Oakland with over 100 people bringing that message directly to the campaign. Those visits are happening around the country and will continue throughout the fall.

Finally, Obama is already a champion for the environment and doesn’t need to do any more. Seriously? The Obama Administration has definitely done some great things for the environment and climate, much better than the Bush Administration (although that’s not really much of a compliment). But the tough thing about physics and chemistry is that they don’t appreciate a few symbolic handouts, especially when you “balance” out your good calls with a bunch of bad ones. Let’s turn to Elizabeth Kolbert from the New Yorker for a quick rundown:

In March, the Administration announced that it would be opening up new public lands in Wyoming for coal mining. In April, the White House delayed plans to impose stricter controls on the mining technique known as mountaintop removal. In May, the Administration put on hold rules aimed at cutting pollution from power plants at places like paper mills and refineries. Also in May, the President announced plans to increase domestic oil production by speeding up permits to drill off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. “Is Obama’s call for more drilling bad messaging masquerading as cynical policy—or vice versa?” the liberal blog Climate Progress asked.

Add to that list the Administration’s recent refusal to tighten smog standards that the EPA estimated would prevent  17,000 premature deaths a year. President Obama himself asked us to hold him accountable, to push him to do the right thing. Stopping the Keystone XL pipeline might not be the easiest decision for the President to make, but it’s the right thing to do. So we’ll keep pushing.

Ok, back to work on some actual organizing. You know, ranting away on blogs is kind of fun, I can understand how “analysts” get off on it. But, at least for me, actually getting out there, joining the fight, and trying to do something about the problems at hand is much more gratifying. Back to work.

Here is the text of Bill’s speech: 

Today in the New York Times there was a story that made it completely clear why we have to be here. They uncovered the fact that the company building that tar sands pipeline was allowed to choose another company to conduct the environmental impact statement, and the company that they chose was a company was a company that did lots and lots of work for them. So, in other words, the whole thing was rigged top to bottom and that’s why the environmental impact statement said that this pipeline would cause no trouble, unlike the scientists who said if we build this pipeline it’s “game over” for the climate. We can’t let this pipeline get built.

On November 6, one year before the election, we’re going to be in DC with a huge circle of people around the White House and they’re going to be carrying signs with quotations from Barack Obama from the 2008 campaign. He said, “It’s time to end the tyranny of oil.” He said, “I will have the most transparent government in history.” We have to go to DC to find out where they have locked that guy up. We have to free Obama, because there is some sort of stunt double there now. So on November 6, I hope we can move, just for a day, Occupy Wall Street down to the White House and get them in the fight against corporate power.

The reason that it’s so great that we’re occupying Wall Street is because Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere. That’s why we can never do anything about global warming. Exxon gets in the way. Goldman Sachs gets in the way. The whole fossil fuel industry gets in the way. The sky does not belong to Exxon. They cannot keep using it as a sewer into which to dump their carbon. If they do, we’ve got no future and nobody else on this planet has a future.

I spend a lot of time in countries around the world organizing demonstrations and rallies in solidarity. In the last three years at 350.org, we’ve had 15,000 rallies in every country except North Korea. Everywhere around the world, poor people and black people and brown people and Asian people and young people are standing up. Most of those places, don’t produce that much carbon. They need us to act with them and for them, because the problem is 20 blocks south of here. That’s where the Empire lives and we’ve got to figure out how to tame it and make it work for this planet or not work at all.

Thank you guys very much.

The Rainforest Action Network compiled a list of “Key Facts on the Keystone XL” which help clear the air:

Energy Security: Tar Sand will not Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.

• Keystone XL is an export pipeline. According to presentations to investors, Gulf Coast refiners plan to refine the cheap Canadian crude supplied by the pipeline into diesel and other products for export to Europe and Latin America. Proceeds from these exports are earned tax-free. Much of the fuel refined from the pipeline’s heavy crude oil will never reach U.S. drivers’ tanks.
• Reducing demand for oil is the best way to improve our energy security. U.S. demand for oil has been declining since 2007. New fuel-efficiency standards mean that this trend will continue once the economy gets back on track. In fact, the Energy Deptartment report on KeystoneXL found that decreasing demand through fuel efficiency is the only way to reduce mid-east oil imports with or without the pipeline.

More info:

• “Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed”, Oil Change International

Gas prices: Keystone XL will increase gas prices for Americans—Especially Farmers

• By draining Midwestern refineries of cheap Canadian crude into export-oriented refineries in the Gulf Coast, Keystone XL will increase the cost of gas for Americans.
• TransCanada’s 2008 Permit Application states “Existing markets for Canadian heavy crude, principally PADD II [U.S. Midwest], are currently oversupplied, resulting in price discounting for Canadian heavy crude oil. Access to the USGC [U.S. Gulf Coast] via the Keystone XL Pipeline is expected to strengthen Canadian crude oil pricing in [the Midwest] by removing this oversupply. This is expected to increase the price of heavy crude to the equivalent cost of imported crude. The resultant increase in the price of heavy crude is estimated to provide an increase in annual revenue to the Canadian producing industry in 2013 of US $2 billion to US $3.9 billion.”
• Independent analysis of these figures found this would increase per-gallon prices by 20 cents/gallon in the Midwest.
• According to an independent analysis U.S. farmers, who spent $12.4 billion on fuel in 2009 could see expenses rise to $15 billion or higher in 2012 or 2013 if the pipeline goes through. At least $500 million of the added expense would come from the Canadian market manipulation.

More information:

• “Tar Sands Oil Means High Gas Prices” Corporate Ethics International
• “Pipeline Profiteering” National Wildlife Federation

Jobs: TransCanada’s jobs projections are vastly inflated.

• In 2008, TransCanada’s Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL to the State Department indicated “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” to build the pipeline.
• Jobs estimates above those listed in its application draw from a 2011 report commissioned by TransCanada that estimates 20,000 “person-years” of employment based on a non-public forecast model using undisclosed inputs provided by TransCanada.
• According to TransCanada’s own data, just 11% of the construction jobs on the Keystone I pipeline in South Dakota were filled by South Dakotans–most of them for temporary, low-paying manual labor.
• Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) both oppose the pipeline. Their August 2011 statement: “We need jobs, but not ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil. There is no shortage of water and sewage pipelines that need to be fixed or replaced, bridges and tunnels that are in need of emergency repair, transportation infrastructure that needs to be renewed and developed. Many jobs could also be created in energy conservation, upgrading the grid, maintaining and expanding public transportation—jobs that can help us reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and improve energy efficiency.”

More Information:

• “Transcanada’s Exaggerated Jobs Claims for KeystoneXL” National Wildlife Federation

Safety: A rupture in the Keystone XL pipeline could cause a BP style oil spill in America’s heartland, over the source of fresh drinking water for 20 million people. NASA’s top climate scientist says that fully developing the tar sands in Canada would mean “essentially game over” for the climate.

• The U.S. Pipeline Safety Administration has not yet conducted an in depth analysis of the safety of diluted bitumen (raw tar sands) pipeline, despite unique safety concerns posed by its more corrosive properties.
• TransCanada predicted that the Keystone I pipeline would see one spill in 7 years. In fact, there have been 12 spills in 1 year. The company was ordered to dig up 10 sections of pipe after government-ordered tests indicated that defective steel may have been used. KeystoneXL will use steel from the same Indian manufacturer.
• Keystone XL will cross through America’s agricultural heartland, the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, the Ogallala aquifer, sage grouse habitat, walleye fisheries and more.
• The agency was not adequately accounting for threats to wildlife, increased pollution in distressed communities where the crude may be refined, or increases in carbon emissions that would exacerbate climate change, and a variety of other issues.

More Information

• “Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks”, National Wildlife Federation, NRDC, Others.
• “On Shore Oil Disasters”, National Wildlife Federation
• “Analysis of Frequency, Magnitude and Consequence of Worst-Case Spills From the Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline” John Stansbury, Ph.D., P.E.
• “Pipeline “Safety Conditions” are Smoke and Mirrors”, NRDC

Climate Change: Keystone XL is the fuse to North America’s biggest carbon bomb.

• In a study funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, a group of retired four-star generals and admirals concluded that climate change, if not addressed, will be the greatest threat to national security.
• The State Department Environmental Impact Statement fails to adequately analyze lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the pipeline. Extraction and refinement of oil sands are more GHG-intensive compared to conventional oil. The EIS estimates that the additional annual GHG emissions from the proposed pipeline could range from an additional “12-23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent… (roughly the equivalent of annual emissions from 2 to 4 coal-fired power plants)” over conventional crude oil from the Middle East. [8] The EPA believes that the methodology used by the State Department is inaccurate and could underestimate GHG emissions by as much as 20 percent.[9] Given that the expected lifetime of the Keystone XL pipeline is fifty years, the EPA notes that the project could yield an extra 1.15 billion tons of GHGs using the quantitative estimates in the EIS.[10]

Read more: Key Facts on Keystone XL | Rainforest Action Network

Cairo, Egypt: Two young woman march, holding signs with over 600 other Egyptian marchers and cyclists who took to the streets for Moving Planet, the September 24, 2011 international day of climate action. They formed a “Human Nile” representing the vulnerability of Egypt’s precious river to climate change and demanding a clean energy and clean transport future for Egypt and for the world. Photo: Ahmed Selweq

Dumaguete City, Philippines: Foundation University students and faculty “taking over and redeeming” Perdices St yesterday, as they celebrate 350.org and Moving Planet with the rest of the World. Photo: Hersley-Ven Casero

Paris, France: People power rivals the Eifel Tower! Photo: Nicolas Chauveau

Kiev, Ukraine: A crowd of people chant and celebrate at the Moving Planet International Day of Climate Action. Photo: Maxm Gorpenyuk

Mollina, Spain: Teachers and students at the University on Youth and Development in Mollina, Spain show their commitment to move our planet towards a more sustainable future. Photo: Mathieu Soete

Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: Hundreds of people took to the streets of Dar Es Salaam in spite of the fact that it is a challenging place to cycle. They were demanding that the Tanzania and the world move beyond fossil fuels. Photo: Greg Giles

Sulaimani, Iraq: More than 200 hundred men, women and children rode bicycles, picked up trash from the streets, and informed Iraqi citizens about the importance of environmental protection. Photo: Chris De Bruyn

London, United Kingdom: Citizens rallied together in London to create a “moving aerial” of a bike – sending a strong demand to the UK government to move away from fossil fuels. Photo: Vish Vishvanath

Honiara, Solomon Islands: A 350 Moving Planet Arrow formation created by school students, youths, NGOs and government officers adorned in colours of the country’s National Flag. Photo: 350.org

Sana’a, Yemen: People in Yemen joined in the action for Moving Planet, a rally for action on climate change, “even though the situation in Yemen is very difficult for making an event”, said organizer Mohamed Awadh. Photo: 350.org

Copenhagen, Denmark: People take to the beach in Copenhagen, their rainbow umbrellas symbolizing the heart and soul of the beautiful movement all over the globe to move beyond fossil fuels. Photo: Jason White

Hanoi, Vietnam: Hundreds of young people joined the bike parade at the Moving Planet Vietnam main event in Hanoi. Photo: 350.org

Kathmandu, Nepal: Monks at the Namo-Buddha Monastery outside Kathmandu and members of Small Earth Nepal pose with a Moving Planet banner on Sept 24, 2011. Photo: 350.org

Aracaju, Brasil Photo: 350.org