Mass mobilization works.  And in 2012, it’s time to apply this lesson to what may be the biggest carbon bomb of them all: a proposal to export US coal from the Powder River Basin to the international market.

If you’re not familiar with coal export proposals, you can get the miserable truth about the issue here.  For now, suffice to say large-scale coal export projects seem to be an even bigger threat to the climate than the Keystone XL pipeline.  In states like Montana, both Republicans and Democrats in statewide office seem bent on blowing up this carbon bomb, and have ignored the protests of environmental groups.

Lobbying, petitioning, and talking about “green jobs” have all failed to stop mine-for-export proposals moving forward (though all these tactics have helped build the movement we’ll need to win).  I believe the only thing that can keep Montana and Wyoming coal in the ground is a mobilization that includes large-scale direct action.  It’s time to do here what Occupy Wall Street did in Zuccotti Park, and what the Tar Sands Action did on President Obama’s doorstep.  We must reclaim power over our communities, and chart the course ourselves to a cleaner, more just future.

This isn’t going to be easy.  There are no really large urban areas in the northern Intermountain West, making mass mobilizations difficult to organize.  However, there is a growing movement within these states to protect our communities from the coal industry.  We know we have the support of activists in the not-so-far-off Pacific Northwest proper, who are organizing to stop proposed coal terminals on the West Coast.  And with a livable planet hanging in the balance, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

In 2012, we can channel the power of mass mobilization into the places where it will be most effective, throwing off the stranglehold of fossil fuel industries over our communities while opening up space for clean energy and green jobs.  With direct action sweeping the country, and ever more people in the West waking up to the impacts of coal export proposals, there couldn’t be a better moment.

I know I’m excited.

Note: yesterday a group of youth activists at the University of Montana (including myself) drafted a call for a weekend of action to protect communities from the coal exports industry.  Coal export projects may well be the largest single threat to the planet right now; and those of us in the heart of coal country need all the help we can get to win this fight. Please see below for the official call to action.

Call for a Weekend of Action to Stop Coal Exports

We, youth climate activists at the University of Montana, are calling for a regional weekend of action to protect the greater Northwest from coal exports.  The action will coincide with the weekend of Rocky Mountain Power Shift, February 17^th-19^th.  That weekend, hundreds of youth climate activists will converge on the University of Montana campus to exchange success stories, hear from movement leaders, learn from each other, and take action to promote solutions to climate change.

On Sunday, Feb 19^th, we will march through downtown Missoula to protest an increase in coal exports (this action is not officially endorsed by Power Shift in any way).  We will draw attention to key politicians and industries who are financing and pushing coal export proposals.

If we can show that people across the greater Northwest region are concerned about this issue, we will dramatically increase our chances of success.  We are asking you to organize an action in your community on the weekend of Feb 18^th, in solidarity with this region-wide effort.

If coal exports increase, it will further jeopardize the health of communities along the rail line, from eastern Montana to the West Coast.  Coal trains are a source of toxic coal dust and diesel fumes, noise pollution, and traffic congestion.  Energy companies plant to ship Montana coal to China and nearby countries, where it will be burned and contribute to climate change and global mercury pollution.

We appreciate any support you can give us in the fight against increased coal exports.  You can take action in your hometown by leading a march, rallying on a street corner, holding a teach-in, lobbying elected officials, or coming up with some other type of action….get creative!

Here in Montana, we are organizing in the heart of coal country.  However, this issue affects all of us.  To make progress toward the goal of stopping exports and protecting our communities, we need your help.  Let us know if you can hold an action the weekend of February 18^th, by filling out the form at this link.  Thanks for anything you can do, and let’s work together to bring about a cleaner, brighter future!

Blue Skies & Coal Don’t Mix Campaign at the University of Montana

American environmentalists are declaring victory over the announcement that the United States will research alternate routes for the Keystone XL pipeline.  While Obama’s announcement was an encouraging gesture, U.S.-based activists are in danger of missing the forest for the trees.  We must look north, the source of tar sands oil, where First Nations people in Canada are directly confronting the accelerating fossil fuel expansion on their land, as we plan the next steps in our movement.

Indigenous Assembly Against Mining & Pipelines, November 2011

The Keystone XL pipeline is just one in a massive network of pipelines branching out from the oil fields of Alberta, illustrated by this map.  The trade magazine Pipelines International reports on this extensive infrastructure of, as they call them, “energy lifelines.”  While the tar sands (or oil sands) have received international attention since the protests against Keystone XL lit off this summer, pipeline expansion is occurring on many fronts in Canada: tar sands oil, conventional oil and natural gas which is being pumped out of Canadian soil. American activists have shown their mettle in facing down the importation of tar sands oil into the U.S., but where do they stand on the dozens of other pipelines that make up this spiderweb?

Traditional environmental leaders, Indigenous environmentalists and youth came together in unprecedented ways during the Keystone fight; now we must move forward with our eyes on the frontline. The untold story of fossil fuel expansion in Canada is its toll on Indigenous communities, or First Nations.  First Nations in Canada in active resistance show paths forward, as fossil fuel companies only intensify their development efforts.
On the same weekend that 12,000 protesters encircled the White House, the 2nd Indigenous Assembly on Pipelines and Mining took place in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories The Indigenous Assembly over the weekend of November 5th, issued this call to action:

Indigenous communities from across the province are gathering in Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories to oppose this conference and those corporations who profit off the destruction of the land. No mining, no pipelines, no resource extraction on unceded native lands! Defend the people, protect the land!

The Assembly hosted No Mining on Native Land!, a march through downtown Vancouver on November 6th. The pipelines, notably the Enbridge oil pipeline and the Kimimat Summit Lake gas pipeline (or Pacific Trails), endanger the lands of Indigenous people who are dependent on trapping and hunting for survival.

Tribe members block PTP from entering unceded land.

The Pacific Trails pipeline would lead to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) port at Bish Cove, an ecologically pristine beach, on the Western cost. The Enbridge and Pacific Trails pipelines would run alongside each other near the Morice River.  The proximity of gas and oil pipelines to each other is particularly dangerous, though the companies have made no statement on this risk.  Many tribal councils and governments have approved one or both pipelines, in large part due to promises of jobs, but among Indigenous residents on the land, resistance is fierce.

The same week, Likhts’amisyu and Unist’ot’en clans of the Wet’swet’en nation confronted officials from Pacific Trails pipeline (PTP), who were attempting to illegally enter their territory to move drilling equipment.  This nation is one of many in Canada on land unceded to the Canadian government.  The nation owns the land and PTP was not authorized to enter.   Tribe members blockaded the access road, and formed an encampment until the company removed all equipment and vehicles several days later.

The Unist’hot’en clan has also built a cabin on Wet’suwet’en territory in the path of the Enbridge pipeline, PTP and one other pipeline, to prevent construction.  They intend to defend the cabin and halt illegal construction on their land.  Mel Bazil of the Lhe Lin Liyin (The Guardians), which support the Unist’hot’en Wet’suwet’en writes,

A delay could benefit their [Transcanada and other companies’] plans to assist in what we consider the systemic scope of the Tar Sands expansion activity. Tar sands may require offsets to operate, and proposed pipelines that acquire tenure through band chiefs and councils, and through treaty agencies … could make deals without the input or involvement of grassroots and indigenous peoples, who experience the environmental damage and pollution.

American activists must link to the struggle of First Nations people resisting Enbridge, PTP and other pipelines.  The Keystone XL pipeline, once considered a no-brainer for approval by industry and legislators, now stands in limbo.  That is a success for American activists.   However, fossil fuels are an international industry, and NAFTA and other treaties have deeply linked the American and Canadian economies.  The frontlines of fossil fuel in the U.S. are inherently connected to the struggle unfolding in Canada as part of a global supply chain.

As collaboration between major environmental NGOs and Indigenous environmental leaders deepens and expands, we must not allow Washington insiders to define the terms of victory.  There is no victory until Indigenous communities, and all frontline communities, are safe from the indignities of fossil fuels.

Read Martha’s previous coverage of Tar Sands oil extraction, activism to stop the Keystone pipeline, and Indigenous organizing in the US and Canada in Resisting the Tar Sands: Bridging Communities & Struggles, published in October, 2011.

Wednesday night, outside of a heated local candidates debate about a proposed massive coal export terminal just ten miles from Western Washington University, a group of students with the Western Action Coalition decided to have a little fun while calling attention to the issue.

The coal terminal, proposed by SSA Marine and it’s minority owner Goldman Sachs, would ship coal from open pit mines in Wyoming through Bellingham, Washington and out of a port at Cherry Point, eventually reaching East Asian markets. The terminal poses a significant threat to communities near WWU: coal dust and coal runoff from open freight cars are a concern to anyone near the tracks; thriving forest would be stripped from the land at Cherry Point; and 80 acres of uncovered coal could degrade the spawning grounds of an endemic herring population, which forms the bottom of the marine food chain. The impacts are as diverse as the communities that would be affected by them.

An action organized by the Western Action Coalition with Earth First! Whatcom focused attention on some of the impacts, while calling the WWU student community to take action with their ballots this week.  Olivia Edwards, a junior studying environmental science dressed as a Salmon. Unconvinced by SSA’s arguments, she said “there are still a multitude of questions that need to be answered and that deserve to be addressed.”

Demonstrators distributed literature endorsing county council and mayoral candidates that will stick up for a sustainable economy for Bellingham and beyond. They called for electing Pete Kremen, Christina Maginnis, and Alan Black for Whatcom County Council and Dan Pike for Bellingham Mayor – all of whom have been endorsed by Washington Conservation Voters.

Meanwhile a coal train made from shopping carts, a revitalized appliance art racer, and a washing machine-turned locomotive rumbled through Red Square, the heart of the WWU campus, and into the narrow corridor at the entrance to the event. As the train conductor blared his whistle, crossing guard Bodie Cabiyo preventing foot traffic from entering the event, “Sorry, expect ten minute delays every hour of every day from here on out,” he said. Increased train traffic resulting from the terminal would have such an effect in Bellingham, isolating communities on opposite sides of the tracks for as much as four hours a day.

Environmental science student Bodie Cabiyo said, “These big issues like dirty energy and climate change can seem pretty distant and relatively unimportant until they threaten to destroy communities and ecosystems right in your back yard. Then you realize just how real the issue actually is.” This week we, WWU students, will cast our ballots for a local economy that will support us into the future, and that will stop global coal trade in it’s tracks.”

EthicalOil.org’s new spokesperson, Kathryn Marshall, authored an insulting piece this week on the Huffington Post titled “Care About Women’s Rights? Support Ethical Oil”. Marshall’s piece is a response to the October 11 article by Maryam Adrangi at It’s Getting Hot In Here.  Adrangi argues that the underlying motive of the “ethical oil” campaign is to deflect negative attention from the tar sands, not to actually engage in a conversation about women’s liberation.

“If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org” writes Adrangi, “then there would be a conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women”.

You’ll notice that Marshall’s attempted rebuttal fails to actually address the substantive criticisms made in Adrangi’s piece – Marshall never mentions the impacts of Alberta’s tar sands development on women, but instead repeats the same arguments and general hand-waving that sparked Adrangi’s criticism of EthicalOil.org’s conservative pundits in the first place.

Marshall’s promotion of tar sands oil is framed around a central argument that if we care about women’s rights then we must support tar sands expansion, and by extension the Keystone XL pipeline, because Canadian women fare far better than women in petrocracies, such as Saudi Arabia.  But Marshall’s argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny for three major reasons.

The first is that increasing tar sands output will not hurt the Saudi sheiks’ coffers. TransCanada’s own research proves that the Keystone XL pipeline was never meant to decrease our reliance on foreign oil, just to keep Gulf Coast refineries at capacity. As global demand for oil keeps going up, a marginal shift in Canadian and US consumption will be offset by growing demand from other countries, keeping prices high and continuing to enrich the oppressive Saudi regime. Expanding the tar sands just buys Saudi Arabia a bit more time to profit before we are compelled to shift away from oil addiction towards a clean energy future – the real ‘ethical’ choice.

This leads to the second major flaw in Ethicaloil.org’s argument: it presents the reader with a false choice. Marshall’s bait-and-switch suggests that we must make a choice between “conflict oil” and “ethical oil”. On the contrary, you can simultaneously support women’s rights and oppose Alberta’s tar sands. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, to say the least. If we really want to hurt the regimes of oppressive petrocracies, then the wise choice is to end our addiction to fossil fuels and move rapidly towards a clean energy economy, setting a model that the rest of the world can follow. EthicalOil.org’s entire line of reasoning is a diversionary tactic designed to obscure this hard reality. It’s a red herring, and a dangerous one at that.

Third, Marshall’s emotional appeal tells readers that because women’s rights are worse in petrocracries, then we needn’t concern ourselves with what’s happening in Canada. In Canada, we have female mayors and premiers. We are a liberal democratic nation that respects human rights. I agree that the plight of women in many petrocracies is grave, but that does not mean that the plight of many women in Canada deserves less consideration from Canadians.

We can and should engage in critical discussions on women’s rights in Canada. And tar sands expansion forces us to explore some of these issues head-on.

In Alberta’s tar sands region in particular, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment and gender discrimination. With expansion of the tar sands industry, instances of domestic violence in Fort McMurray have spiralled upwards, and few women have safe places to go, forcing many to return home to their abusers.

Instead of pretending that expanding the tar sands will somehow help women in Saudi Arabia, let’s talk about how we can help Canadian women impacted right here at home by tar sands expansion.

Marshall boldly demands to know where Canadian women’s groups have been in speaking out against Saudi women’s oppression. Did she ever think to ask these groups? I did. For one, Jan Slakov, the National Secretary for Canadian Voices of Women for Peace, the organization that Marshall attacks in her piece, told me,

“The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace has worked to support women’s rights and well-being, not just in Canada, but around the world. Groups have raised funds to support programs in countires where women face systematic human rights abuses. We also work at the international level to support women’s rights through the UN.”

As a Women’s Studies graduate, Marshall should know that Canadian women’s rights groups are engaged in this fight directly. Instead, Marshall, while claiming to be an advocate of women’s rights, erases the history of the women’s rights movement in Canada and its work in global solidarity with women living under oppressive regimes. I can’t speak for women’s groups, but I think it’s telling that we haven’t heard any credible organizations supporting EthicalOil.org’s message. I suspect they see right through EthicalOil.org’s insincere issue hijacking.

The Summer of Solutions is a program for young people who want to build just, sustainable economies in their communities.

We want to invite YOU to be one of those young people building those solutions. Apply here by October 22 to start a program in your community or to join an existing program leader team.

Running a program gives you the opportunity to create and support green economy projects that build power for people who currently don’t have as much access AND to empower young people from your community and beyond with the skills and strategies they need to do the same thing wherever they go next.

Past Summer of Solutions programs have:

• Built community gardens and farms on vacant lots
• Taught neighbors how to use bikes as an effective form of transit
• Run summer camps for children to help them learn about healthy eating and growing their own food
• Founded and partnered with energy businesses to create a community-based clean energy system
• Created community spaces, from mini-golf courses in the coal fields of West Virginia to a playground in Detroit, MI
• Designed and organized for green manufacturing at a closing car factory in Saint Paul, MN

You can read more about these and other stories at the Summer of Solutions blog. To learn more about the values, principles, and strategies of the program, check out the statement on our website.

Leading a program is a challenging, broadening experience that will help you grow your skills in organizing communities, innovating new solutions, planning with flexibility, telling your story, and raising the resources to support it all. Past program leaders have said about the experience:

• “Our program was a transformative and sometimes overwhelming experience that made several leaders and participants challenge their own destiny. The gratitude expressed by the groups we were working with, the fun we had together, and the bonds we formed will last a lifetime.” – Summer of Solutions/Build It Up West Virginia program leader team
• “This work fits my beliefs and passions so perfectly. I have learned so much from trying and failing and retrying to grow into this role and this movement. The people I’ve befriended through Grand Aspirations and activism are an incredible source of strength. Hey, we’re family.”– Jen Roach, Hartford Summer of Solutions
• “Leading a Summer of Solutions program was one of the most challenging and yet exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone who has ever wanted to start their own organization to create positive change—this summer certainly had as much excitement as any start-up I’ve ever worked with.” — Lisa Curtis, Oakland Summer of Solutions
• “Participating in and then leading a Summer of Solutions program has been the literally the most transformational experience of my life. It has helped me to grow into becoming the person I want to be. This summer I felt like I was learning so quickly that I felt confident doing things that just the week before would have been totally beyond my skill-set.” — Elana Bulman, Twin Cities Summer of Solutions

If you want to start a new program, you can start something totally from scratch or partner with an existing organization (or something in between). Programs can be hosted either within Grand Aspirations, which runs Summer of Solutions nationally, or as part of a local organization. You can use the summer to start new projects or expand existing ones. You can bring together young people in your community and from outside your community to work together towards common goals. To see all the things program leaders accomplish, please check out the 2012 Program Guidelines.

If you want to join an existing program in Hartford, CT; the Twin Cities, MN; Oakland, CA; or Portland, OR, you can check out what those teams are looking for in new program leaders on their pages. These teams have more experience and direction already but are open to new ideas and innovation as well.

The deadline to apply is October 22.

However you choose to engage as a program leader, Grand Aspirations will support you! Each planning team has a Program Supporter who is an experienced program leader. Your Program Supporter will talk through challenges and connect you with the resources from the rest of the organization like the Media Team, the Resources Team, and the Leadership Development Team. You will have opportunities to connect and brainstorm with your peers at other programs through confluence calls and regional training events during the winter.

If you have any questions about what being a program leader entails, please get in touch with Ruby Levine (802-272-4140, ruby.levine@gmail.com) or Timothy DenHerder-Thomas (646-670-1682, timothydht@gmail.com) to talk through what being a program leader could look like for you!

Concerned citizens in Missoula, a town known for progressive ethics and environmentalism, aren’t going to stand by and let this happen.  This morning our group rallied on the UM campus to hear from local business owner Mark Kersting.  As the owner of the Stensrud Events Center, located mere blocks from the railroad that passes through Missoula, Kersting’s business is already being impacted by noise and air pollution from existing rail traffic.  Increasing the number of coal trains on the line to an extra train per hour every day – something we could see happen if Arch gets its way – would make the problem even worse.

According to Kersting, “Officials here in Missoula are doing nothing to address this problem.  The first responsibility of elected representatives should be to protect public health and safety.”

If local, state, and federal government representatives refuse to take action on this issue, cutting off funding for coal projects might be the next best bet for impacted communities.  There’s no better place to start than Wells Fargo – a bank which has shown it sometimes responds to public pressure, but which continues to fund coal development.  After years of pressure, Wells Fargo has begun to distance itself from the horrendous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.  But the bank is still funding Big Coal, contributing to the pattern that’s enables Arch’s profiteering.

“Wells Fargo is one of the big funders of dirty coal projects,” said UM student Rosa Lincoln at this morning’s meetup.  “We’re asking them to fund clean energy and help keep Missoula’s air clean.”

After assembling on-campus, our group embarked on a bike rally through downtown, finishing at a local Wells Fargo branch office.  After being turned away at the door by bank staff, we stood on the sidewalks at a busy intersection, with signs calling on Wells Forgo to “Fund the Future, Not Coal” and to “Keep Montana Clean.”  Proving that we’re not alone in our concerns, many drivers passing by honked their horns in encouragement or gave us the thumbs-up sign.

Just in case Wells Fargo hadn’t got our message yet, Mr. Kersting made a powerful statement by withdrawing his money and closing his account with the bank, while dozens of UM students stood on the sidewalk and waved our signs close by.  “I explained why I was withdrawing my money and why this issue is important,” Kersting said.  “This is about the health of our children, and of future generations.”

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.

These are lyrics from my favorite song this summer, Battles by The Smart Brothers.

It’s a love song, but I also hear a call to action, a call to protect that which we care most about.

The Keystone XL pipeline, and the tar sands extraction it would spur, is so obviously one of the worst actions the United States could take with regard to climate change, not to mention all the communities along the pipeline route whose water and ecosystems would be threatened by crude oil spills. Today, leaders of the largest environmental organizations in this country united to release a letter calling on President Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline.  You know when Environmental Defense Fund teams up with Rainforest Action Network that something big is in the air.

The tar sands industry has been trying for years to send tar sands crude to American refineries, and the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, in James Hansen’s words, would be game over for the climate.  The predecessor to Keystone XL, the Keystone pipeline, has already had 15 spills in the United States and over 20 spills in Canada since it became operational last year.  The Enbridge pipeline dumped 800,000 gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River, and the pipeline that spilled 42,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River also carries tar sands crude (a full list of pipeline accidents can be found here).

President Obama himself, without any influence from Congress, can make the decision to deny or approve the Keystone XL permit. Since Saturday, 275 people have been arrested for protesting the Keystone XL pipeline outside of the White House, calling on Obama to deny the permit.  If this is not an act of love to protect our neighbors, country and planet from the tar sands evil at our door, I don’t know what is.  And it is incredibly encouraging that the environmental leaders who sent the letter to Obama said “there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone Pipeline and those of the very civil protesters being arrested daily outside the White House.”

If you have the means, please join our brothers and sisters in DC through September 2nd to urge Obama to stop the pipeline.

For folks who cannot travel to DC to participate in the protests, please contact the White House Comment Line.  Call 202-456-1111 between the hours of 9AM and 5PM Eastern, and say “The tar sands represent a catastrophic threat to our communities, our climate, and our planet. We urge you to demonstrate real climate leadership by rejecting the requested permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and instead focus on developing safe, clean energy.”

You are encouraged to call the White House Comment Line as many times as you would like! If you want to learn more about the tar sands action, visit http://www.tarsandsaction.org/.

“And I’m leaving in the morning, to meet the evil at our door…You are the one I fight my battles for, you are the one that I adore.”

I’m a lifelong Nebraskan. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska 22 years ago, and although I was swept away to the East Coast for school and sustainable farming opportunities in the past few years, my heart still bleeds bright Cornhusker red. I’ve been in love with my home state for as long as I can remember (in love enough to recently get the outline of my Midwestern home state tattooed on my back…yeah…I’m not kidding!)

In the summer of 2010, a few friends and I started the organization Guardians of the Good Life (GOTGL), a home-grown, grassroots group of activists and clean energy economy  radicals in the urban center of Nebraska, Omaha. An eclectic group of people, GOTGL, admittedly a cheesy name for such a fantastic organization ( “the Good Life” being Nebraska’s unofficial state motto), is made up of urban eco-activists of all walks of life. Formed under the core beliefs that urban Nebraskans have a vested interest in protecting our state from the dangerous Keystone XL Pipeline, Guardians of the Good Life has continuously kicked out creative and engaging campaigns to stop the tar sands from ever entering out state…and for that matter, ever leaving their dirty home in Alberta.

Sadly, not living in Nebraska anymore, I have not been able to participate in the Guardians activities since last summer. However, as a large group of Nebraskans were arrested today in front of the White House today and as I prepare to risk arrest next week, I felt it necessary to write about the activities and interests of urban Nebraskans fighting the pipeline. Last August, the Guardians hosted a Week of Action against the pipeline, including educational lectures, street demonstrations, a “tar sands lemonade stand” tasting, and culminating in a 100 person “Human Oil Spill” flash mob and banner drop over Omaha’s most busy thoroughfare during rush hour. Since the week of action last August, GOTGL have hosted bi-weekly roadside demonstrations, hosted benefit concerts and parties against the Pipeline, an aggressive public advertising campaign and anonymous members recently installed a large scale anti-pipeline public art piece illustrating the potentially disastrous effects of the pipeline on Nebraska’s people, environment and economy. An entirely citizen driven effort, the Guardians have partnered with groups like Bold Nebraska, the Nebraska Wildlife Federation, and the Nebrasksa Farmers Union to educate and empower Nebraska citizens from both rural and urban communities to resist this incredible threat to our state.

The pipeline, which stretches from the Alberta all the way to Texas threatens every state along its winding path. But Nebraska has quite a lot to lose from this pipeline being approved. Seriously, Nebraska’s farmers (including some of my own family who run the family farm I hope to take over when I’m older), ranchers and the general population have A LOT to lose from what will, if this population is approved, ultimately destroy the precious Nebraska Sand Hills, the largest water source for farmers and 82 % of drinking water for those who live over its boundaries, the Ogallala Aquifer.

The Keystone XL pipeline is not a threat anyone, from Alberta to Nebraska all the way to Texas, can ignore any longer. My state’s livelihood is at risk, as fellow Nebraskan Ben Gotschall recently illustrated in his blog post here. We are facing gargantuan opposition, which obviously calls for an equally gargantuan response from we the people. That’s why I’ll be in Washington D.C. next week to represent all those from my home state who could not make it out to our nations capitol to express their anger about the Keystone XL Pipeline, rage about the current administrations incredibly frustrating inaction and to put forth their collective vision for a clean, tar sands free Nebraska.

See you in D.C.!

Aaron