Thousands March to Protest Tar Sands Pipeline and Fracking

For the first time in 120 years the The Sierra Club is urging citizens of the U.S. and Canada to practice Civil Disobedience against the XL Pipeline, planned to carry toxic tar sands from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. This weekend, many protests took place across the country, and celebrities chained themselves to the gates of the White House leading to the arrest of Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, Julian Bond, Darryl Hannah, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr..


Protests Across the Country

Thousands of people rallied in downtown San Francisco on Sunday to urge President Obama to reject construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, an action they said would prove he is committed to fighting global warming.
The demonstration across from the Ferry Building was held at the same time as similar events in cities including Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. The main event in Washington, D.C., drew tens of thousands of supporters in what was billed as the largest climate change rally in U.S. history.

Activists Arrested in White House Protest Over XL Pipeline

Celebrities and environmental activists, including lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and civil rights leader Julian Bond, were arrested Wednesday after tying themselves to the White House gate to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune also was arrested – the first time in the group's 120-year history that a club leader was arrested in an act of civil disobedience. The club's board of directors approved the action as a sign of its opposition to the $7 billion pipeline, which would carry oil derived from tar sands in western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.



Activist Bill McKibben, actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climate scientist James Hansen also were arrested, along with more than 40 others. They were charged with failure to disperse and obey lawful orders, and released on $100 bond each.

. . . Kennedy, president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a New York-based environmental group, said he was being arrested "with regret," noting that he would prefer to contest the pipeline in court – and may eventually do so.
Kennedy, whose father was an attorney general and U.S. senator, called the pipeline "a boondoggle of monumental proportions" that will "ruin the lives of millions of people," through increased carbon pollution and likely spills.

Romney Dredges Up "Drill Baby Drill"

Good old Mitt Romney ~ as a hurricane moves into the Gulf threatening everything including the precarious Oil Industry, he brings up the idea of drilling offshore and in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge as a good thing.

Yeah, how did that work out for McCain/Palin?  And I know Mitt doesn't care to remember, but the Gulf suffered through the horrible Deepwater Horizon Spill since the last election. Good luck, Mitt. Even your toady, Bobby Jindal, might not back you on this one.

Via San Francisco Chronicle

HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney promised on Thursday to aggressively expand off-shore oil drilling along Virginia, North Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico, changing the subject from social issues like abortion and Medicare that have dominated the debate in the days before the critical Republican National Convention.

Speaking to voters in the heart of New Mexico's oil and gas industry, Romney declared that his energy plans — which include drilling for oil in a federal Alaskan wildlife reserve — would create 3 million jobs and more than $1 trillion in new revenue. And he predicted complete "North American energy independence by 2020, a never-realized goal claimed by presidential candidates for decades."

"That means we produce all the energy we use in North America," Romney said, emphasizing an expansion of oil and gas over wind and solar production. "This is not some pie-in-the-sky kind of thing. This is a real achievable objective."