It’s Getting Hot In Here

This post was originally posted on Waging Nonviolence and was authored by Bryan Farrell.

“We don’t know how many people it takes to encircle the White House, but we’re about to find out,” Bill McKibben told a crowd of over 12,000 gathered in Lafayette Square on Sunday afternoon.

Such a prospect would have been hard to imagine eleven weeks earlier, when McKibben was standing in the same park with no more than a hundred people listening. It was the first day of what would become a two-week long campaign of mass civil disobedience targeting the planned construction of TransCanada’s 1,700-mile KeystoneXL oil pipeline from the tar sands of Northern Alberta to the refineries of the Texas Gulf Coast.

Shortly before leading a group of 65 people (including this author) into the DC jail system for the next two nights, McKibben told the small crowd, “We’ve already succeeded in nationalizing this fight in a way no one thought was possible. It’s not just a group of people along the pipeline route who are opposing this project anymore. People from all 50 states will be joining us over the coming weeks.”

He was right. Over 1,200 people from across the United States and Canada with all different kinds of backgrounds—farmers, ranchers, Gulf Coast residents, faith leaders, indigenous people and climate activists—came to put their bodies on the line and send a clear message to the president that tar sands oil is a death sentence for the planet. Many echoed the words of NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who said further development of the tar sands would be “game over for the planet.”

What no one could have expected on that day in August was the explosion of mass sustained protest that would soon follow in this country. Occupy Wall Street was only in the planning stages at that point, but its emergence weeks later helped foster the sense that change is only going to come through dedication and relentless pressure.

In the two months since the last tar sands protester was arrested, a series of calamitous events has befallen the pipeline and what seemed like a rubber-stamped process leading up to its construction. First a scandal emerged, detailing a cozy relationship between TransCanada and the State Department, the US Agency tasked with determining whether the pipeline is in the “national interest.” Uncovered emails show that the State Department allowed TransCanada to play a major role in choosing the firm that conducted the pipeline’s environmental impact study.

Then, last week, it was revealed that the State Department lost tens of thousands of public comments on the pipeline and wouldn’t say how the remaining will be handled. And finally, just days ago, the Washington Post did a little digging into the industry’s reports on job creation only to discover that the numbers are based on fabrication and fuzzy math.

There’s little doubt these trip-ups would have occurred—let alone surfaced—if not for the continued pressure of the tar sands organizers and protesters. Over the course of those two months, they protested at Obama campaign events, gained the support of the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and seven other Nobel Peace Laureates, and found allies in Congress and the Senate. Even celebrities like Robert Redford and Marc Ruffalo took up their cause.

Perhaps sensing the shift in winds and it’s potential blowback effect on the 2012 presidential elections, President Obama stepped forward last week and addressed the issue for the first time, saying that he would take full ownership for the final decision—something that only a day earlier his press secretary said would be made by the State Department. He also made it clear that he was not going to let the red herring that is the jobs versus the environment debate cloud his decision, adding, “I think folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, “We’ll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health…” Continue reading ‘Entirely surrounded: Protesters encircle White House, close in on tar sands industry’

In a sickening (literally) move, President Obama has told the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon their plans to protect kids from toxic air pollution, siding with big polluters like Exxon, Koch Industries, and their sock-puppet the US Chamber of Commerce over the health and safety of America’s youth.

The EPA did their job, following scientific advice, hearing from impacted communities, environmental justice, and health organizations. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson worked to set new standards for communities, which would have helped protect kids and keep people working instead of out of work sick or in the ER taking care of their kids and likely spurred investments in scrubbers and pollution control equipment manufactured here in the United States.

Instead, the President sided with the US Chamber of Commerce, echoing the very language they used in their letter scrambling to find justifications for why these polluting corporations wanted to put off essential protections for the lives and health of kids and seniors exposed to toxic air pollutants. The Chamber of Commerce, reveling in the power they are exercising in a post-Citizens United world of unlimited corporate cash in US elections, said:

U.S. Chamber Praises White House Decision to Withdraw Potentially Disastrous Ozone Standards
Donohue Calls Move a ‘Big First Step in What Needs to be a Broader Regulatory Reform Effort’. Source

This is after over a thousand people have been arrested in front of the White House, desperately trying to get President Obama to halt the Keystone XL pipeline that the nation’s top climate scientist said would be ‘game over’ for the climate, if built. A White House conspicuously without solar panels, that the Administration had promised to install by this spring. Another in a string of promises broken and priorities downgraded on the environmental front. As the protestors outside the White House have been singing, “Pick a side Obama”, and it appears that he has.

Our Editor, Christine Irvine at Tar Sands Action. Source: Shadia Wood

70 people from across the US and Canada were arrested at the White House this morning for the first day of a two week sit-in aimed at pressuring President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. Over 2,000 more people are expected to join the daily civil disobedience over the coming days.

At stake is what has quickly become the largest environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election. The President must choose whether or not to grant a Canadian company a permit to build a 1,700 mile pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the gulf of mexico.

Environmentalists warn that the pipeline could cause a BP disaster right in America’s heartland, over the largest source of fresh drinking water in the country. The world’s top climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, has warned that if the Canadian tar sands are fully developed it could be “game over” for the climate.

“It’s not the easiest thing on earth for law-abiding folk to come risk arrest. But this pipeline has emerged as the single clear test of the president’s willingness to fight for the environment,” said environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, who is spearheading the protests and was arrested this morning. “So I wore my Obama ’08 button, and I carry a great deal of hope in my heart that we will see that old Obama emerge. It’s hot out here today, especially when you’re wearing a suit and tie. But it’s nowhere near as hot as it’s going to get if we lose this fight.”

McKibben was amongst those arrested today, along with the co-founder of NRDC and former White House official Gus Speth, gay rights activist Lt. Dan Choi, author and activist Mike Tidwell, Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher, and many others. Continue reading ’70 People Arrested in Opening Day of Tar Sands Action’

Cross-posted from the new Thinkprogress Green.

VIDEO: ‘A LINK BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND JOPLIN TORNADOES? NEVER.’ | Watch and share this powerful visualization of Bill McKibben’s scathing Washington Post op-ed on our dangerously polluted world, narrated by Stephen Thomson:

In 25 countries on five continents, the next generation of youth climate activists are participating in the iMatter march by taking to the streets and to the courts to demand action. Here at It’s Getting Hot in Here, we have seen a youth climate movement explode in Montreal, grow up (quite literally) organizing events like Power Shift, and launching organizations like 350.org, Summer of Solutions, the Indian Youth Climate Network, and so many more.

Continue reading ‘On Mother’s Day, Hundreds of Events for iMatter March’

Ten thousand young activists descended on Washington, D.C. and just as suddenly left, leaving behind a trail of protest signs, guerrilla posters on the tar sands on virtually every street corner in Chinatown, and a number of summons for court dates for direct actions. Those activists are taking with them their crash training  in the grassroots organizing skills and storytelling that propelled much of the field operation of the 2008 Obama campaign, as well as new connections and a flurry of new Facebook friends. However, the lasting legacy of Power Shift 2011 will be declaration that the youth climate movement is no longer willing to play by the rules, to no longer accept business as usual.

At Power Shift 2009, everything seemed to be lined up for a clean victory. Van Jones, the keynote of the 2007 conference, was going to be the new Green Jobs czar, almost every high ranking administration official came for a rockstar welcome and made huge promises, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Ed Markey promised a climate bill. Big environmental organizations weren’t exactly praised for their strategies to move climate legislation, but there was this sense that with this President, this Congress, and the momentum behind them fueled by their generation’s political engagement, we were going to see real change.

Instead, while Speaker Pelosi held up her end of the bargain, they watched as they were cut out of a process dominated by backroom deals by major environmental organizations, un-transparent ‘war rooms’, and a hostile senate and indifferent President. The narrative of the tea party dominated the year, bankrolled by mountains of corporate cash, as the health care fight seemingly exhausted the policy making capacity of the Democratic party, but those youth activists were not called upon, brought in, or presented with a way to engage. Even the worst environmental disaster in recent history, the Gulf Oil spill, seemed to derail progress, with a feckless response by the US government.

So, they came to Power Shift, this year, pissed off and determined not to take a back seat again. Speeches by Bill McKibben, Van Jones, and Tim DeChristopher hammered home the idea that change was not going to come without radical changes to business as usual. In fact, the US Chamber of Commerce, seen by many of the face of American business, was singled out for its mask slipping and it being revealed as a front group for big polluters trying to appropriate the mom and pop image of local chambers of commerce to block climate legislation. Direct action, sit-ins, movement building, and working to get people out into the streets were prioritized over lobbying and other politer political activity.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81EZUkYzrxU] Continue reading ‘Power Shift 2011: the End of Business as Usual’

Our guest blogger is Noland Chambliss, a member of the Briefcase Brigades.

Ten thousand young people descended on Washington for the Power Shift conference this weekend to call for bold action from government leaders to address climate change and create a clean energy economy for all. Many of these young people had a more specific, and personal, message for Congress: “I need a job.”

Inspired by passionate speeches addressing youth unemployment by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and green jobs visionary Van Jones, the members of the Briefcase Brigades are bringing attention to the epidemic of un- and under-employed millennials:

We are ready to work. We know the economy is in bad shape. We know the country is in trouble. We want to help. But first, we need jobs.

Watch the story of the Briefcase Brigades at Power Shift 2011:

On April 27th, while Congress is in recess and members are back in their districts, young people are creating Briefcase Brigades and going to their offices all around the country to demand Congress prioritize jobs over budget cuts.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 5 million young people who are out of work. That doesn’t count people with unpaid internships, people with low-wage jobs that don’t have health insurance, and people who went back to school because they couldn’t find a job. Continue reading ‘Power Shift 2011: Join The Briefcase Brigades On April 27′

Bill McKibben gave one of the most inspiring speeches on climate change I have ever heard at Power Shift.
You have to watch the video below:

Full transcript is Below the Fold.

Continue reading ‘Bill McKibben: “You are the movement we need to win in the few years we have left”’

Photo by Shadia Fayne Wood

Did you just go to Power Shift 2011? If so, you probably participated in the largest grassroots organizing training in our movement’s history. Hopefully, you learned how to tell your story of what motivates you to do this work and rise to the climate challenge. Perhaps you learned how to tell the story of your community, the struggles, hopes, and challenges of your friends, neighbors, dorm-mates, or co-workers.

I think you might have learned how to the story of now, why now is the time to get involved, to make the change needed to head off the climate crisis and build a clean energy economy strong enough to pull us out of the financial wreckage our out-of-control Wall street banks left us.

Guess what? Those stories can move people, motivate your friends and family to join the fight, and fire up a nationwide movement. However, you don’t have to always tell those stories one at a time. You can tell them to thousands of our friends, to our movement. I want to read these stories and learn about you, why you get up to take on climate change, your struggles, your victories.

So, consider It’s Getting Hot in Here an extension of your voice. The megaphone you need to tell the world, your movement, and your new friends all about you. We just broke two million views, so somebody out here is paying attention. Once you tell your story, stick around. You are going to learn from people, from all over the country, who just like you, care a whole hell of lot.

They may be nearby or clear across the country, organizing at an Ivy League or in the hollers of Appalachia, but if you read their stories, hear their heartbreak, their tears of joy, and their brilliant, beautiful ideas, you will slowly change.

They will become your new friends, your allies, those whose work keeps you going during the tough times and those who celebrate with you in the best of times. We need you and you will grow to find you need them too.

So, if you are that storyteller, email me: richard[at]firedupmedia.com and let’s get you started telling your stories right here on It’s Getting Hot in Here. All my love and in solidarity for a future worth fighting for.