The vacation is over and this weekend, it's back to reality for President Obama. While the President has been in Martha’s Vineyard, hundreds of people have been uniting outside the White House with a message for Obama: deny the permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and make good on promises to take action on climate change.
Also welcoming Obama home from vacation are bus shelter ads, up in full force around the White House, featuring Celina Harpe, an Elder from Fort McKay, Alberta, located in the heart of the tar sands region, holding a sign reading, “Obama: No more tar sands. Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline.” Above Celine’s plea is a large photo of an open-pit mine with the words “Help defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America” plastered over it. The ad serves as a call-out to join the actions in DC, which began on August 20 and continue until September 3. The ad is also a call to action for Canadians to join in solidarity in Ottawa on September 26 to oppose the tar sands industry.
Since the two-week sit-in began on August 20, more than 374 arrests have been made. While that number may seem staggering, it hasn't dampened the spirits of participants. In fact, more fuel is being added to the fire as the fight against the tar sands industry enters a new phase. After working on this campaign in Canada for nearly four years, witnessing these brave people from across the US risking arrest in DC last week was truly humbling. Once Canada’s dirty little secret, the tar sands are now in the global climate spotlight, and its defenders are being exposed for the greedy greenwashers they are. Prominent climate scientist and NASA head James Hansen has said we must leave unconventionals like tar sands in the ground if we have any hope of avoiding the catastrophic effects of global climate change. Recently he said: “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over.”
We must heed this warning, and the warnings of scientists all over the world. The time to take our opposition to this polluting, selfish industry is now. If we do nothing, if we aren’t courageous enough to follow in the footsteps of the brave activists who have descended on the White House this week, then we are complicit in the biggest crime of our time: ignoring the science and continuing down this reckless path with no thought to the future. If we don’t act now, our silence and our apathy will be our undoing.
I for one am heartened and inspired by what I saw last week in DC. If thousands of people from across America and Canada, from every age, race, creed and walk of life imaginable can come together like this, in body and in spirit, then perhaps we still have a chance.
This is our time. The moment is now. Join us. www.ottawaaction.ca