* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Fight to stop Keystone XL pipeline shows U.S. climate movement is now a force to be reckoned with
By Lindsey Allen, Rainforest Action Network Executive Director
After a seven year fight, President Obama finally rejected the northern leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. But it is important to remember how recently the Keystone XL pipeline was considered an unstoppable political juggernaut, a done deal. The fight against this project was dismissed by most political insiders as a lost cause. The fact that we have come this far is a testament to the power of grassroots organizing. It is the result of literally millions of people taking action to prioritize long term climate justice over short term corporate profit. And it is just the beginning of what the newly invigorated climate movement must, and will, achieve in the years to come.
Keystone XL has always been about power: people power vs. the power of Big Oil. Against a tidal wave of business-as-usual corporate money funneled to lobbyists and paid advertisements, an unprecedented coalition came together. From gathering petition signatures and making phone calls to hosting vigils, concerts and house parties, to engaging in direct action and principled arrests, communities rose up to stop this behemoth project against all odds. People launched tree-sits in the piney woods of East Texas, they encircled the White House by the thousands, and nearly one hundred thousand signed a Pledge of Resistance to use their bodies if necessary to stop business as usual if Obama indicated imminent approval.
Nebraska landowners and Indigenous activists participated in civil disobedience alongside long time environmentalists. Urban climate justice advocates worked with faith groups from the Midwest. People from all walks of life took a look at this issue and decided to make it a referendum on the future of our country. The question became: are we as a nation going to double down on our commitment to the fossil fuel economy by investing billions of dollars into new infrastructure for oil, gas and coal, or are we going to get serious about changing our course to a clean energy economy.
Some criticized the widespread focus on the Keystone fight as too narrow or short sighted — but this never been about just one pipeline. The organizing that has gone into this battle has reverberated widely and it has changed the landscape for fossil fuel development on a national scale. Before Keystone, major infrastructure projects like this one were routinely rubber stamped with little fanfare or opposition. All that has changed. These projects are now facing greater scrutiny from regulators and the public, the approval process takes years longer and the whole endeavor is far more expensive for the companies pushing them. The Keystone fight has succeeded, beyond stopping one bad pipeline, by actually beginning to slow down the gears of fossil fuel infrastructure development across the board.
And even more, this fight has demonstrated the maturation of the U.S. climate movement into a sophisticated and undeniable force to be reckoned with, not just as an environmental issue but as a moral and just cause that is important to anyone who cares about the future our children will inherit.
When we fight, we win, and this week, people power not only won, but made history. But the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline cannot be considered Obama’s big bold move to secure his legacy as a climate leader. The bitter truth is that the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline - stretching from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast - was approved by Obama and oil flows through it today.
But as we approach the COP 21 climate summit in Paris, President Obama needs to take real action if he truly wants to leave an environmental legacy. He can show true leadership by keeping fossil fuels in the ground and ending the outdated program of leasing federal fossil fuels on U.S. public lands to dirty energy companies.
U.S. taxpayers own hundreds of millions of acres of land containing hundreds of millions of tons of untapped carbon reserves, and the Obama administration has been handing rights to these reserves out with reckless abandon to the world’s wealthiest corporations for pennies on the dollar. There is no pathway to a healthy and climate stable future that involves burning what remains of our public fossil fuels.
So this week, we celebrate and raise a glass to the growing power of people working together to make a better world. And next we double down and seize the momentum of this victory to fight like hell to hold corporations accountable and pressure our elected leaders to stand up to Big Oil and make the hard choices necessary to achieve the truly transformative changes needed to decarbonize our economy and stop runaway climate chaos.
