Dear APEC Friend,
Saturday, I was arrested in front of the White House while protesting the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline. Along with Bill McKibben and Gus Speth, I spent 52 hours in custody of the Park Police and DC city jails. I stood with the first 70 of over 2,000 activists committed to participating in this organized civil disobedience over the next two weeks.
Why am I and hundreds of others, wearing our Obama 2008 buttons, while risking arrest over such an obscure project? 350.org founder Bill McKibben describes the tar sands pipeline as “a 1700-mile fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.” James Hanson, NASA's preeminent climate scientist, says that if the tar sands are fully exploited it's "game over" for the planet! Hanson is among those coming to DC to be arrested.
President Obama can stop this project singlehandedly--without interference from Congress. Obama has sole authority. We must compel him to make good on his promise. In his June 6, 2008, speech in St. Paul, MN, upon securing the Democratic nomination Obama said, "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Background: Production of oil from tar sands bitumen produces between 3 and 5 times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production. Keystone XL is a project proposed to develop a $7 billion pipeline to transport oil from oil sands reserves in northern Alberta, Canada, to refineries Texas. Gathering and refining petroleum from the oil sands in Canada is perhaps the most environmentally hazardous and costly method of oil extraction on the table right now. Tar sands extraction endangers the health and destroys the lands of indigenous peoples. The pipeline risks leaks across some of the nation's prime farm and ranch land and the precious Ogallala Aquifer. Farmers are rising to oppose the pipeline.
While in jail, I adapted that old civil rights song "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" to a new purpose:
We're gonna walk (work, stand, ______) to turn Obama around, Obama around, Obama around Were gonna talk (pray, fight, sing, ______) to turn Obama around
Keep on a workin', keep on a talkin'
Gonna shut the pipeline (Keystone) down.
I was manacled, shackled, and isolated from our group at the Federal Courthouse for singing those words.
My son Daniel rushed south from New England surprising me at the Federal Courthouse door when we were released. What a wonderful feeling of support his embrace gave me. Now, I need your help, too! Many of us worked hard for President Obama's election three years ago. We feel very disappointed in the progress on environmental healing that we expected Obama to lead.
It's time we let Obama know how he can rekindle some hope and change. The President acting alone can stop the Keystone XL pipeline project. Let's make him do it. Tell him you were a supporter and want to be again, but you need a clear signal that he is on your side and that of future generations.
• Send your own personal message to President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
• You can sign the petition at http://www.tarsandsaction.org/obama-petition/
• Forward this message on to other individuals and lists.
Thank you for your faith that we can turn this country around from the old ways of doing business and create space for a green energy future to flourish.
--Rees
rrshearer@gmail.com
(276) 944-5355
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P.S. It's so good to be unshackled, eating garden produce instead of baloney on white bread, and sleeping on a soft mattress instead of cold steel. If you would like to receive my story (when completed) about what the jail experience was like, email me.
BTW, the court dropped all charges.
