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People-Powered Testimony Against Keystone XL Tar Sands
Supported by hundreds of people who believe that the American people don’t need to destroy the planet in order to prosper, dozens spoke up against the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline at a State Department hearing today. Speakers concerned by the threat tar sands oil poses to our nation and our planet included priests and ministers, Obama campaign volunteers, and Nebraska ranchers.
In the video below, ThinkProgress Green excerpts statements from youth activists Ethan Nuss and Danielle Simms, indigenous leaders George Poitras and Debra White Plume, Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica, clean-tech investor Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, and former pipeline inspector Mike Klink:
ETHAN NUSS: What we have here is a foreign company using foreign materials to pump foreign oil through America’s heartland.
BRIG. GEN. STEVEN ANDERSON (Ret.): This pipeline will set back the clock of 25 years of energy development in our nation.
MIKE KLINK: Maybe, just maybe, there won’t be 14 leaks in the first year, one of the worst pipeline disasters in history.
ERICH PICA: President Obama ran a campaign on trying to clean up Washington DC and cleaning up the lobby process. It is clear that this process is failing his promise, it is failing the American people, and it is failing the environment, and it is failing our need globally to fight climate change. This pipeline should and must be stopped.
GEORGE POITRAS: President Obama has a moral and ethical obligation to visit the tar sands, see the tar sands, to hear our people.
DANIELLE SIMMS: Either you will support the oligarchy and the oil industry, or you will stand with the American people, environmental and civil rights justice.
DEBRA WHITE PLUME: Our Lakota prophecy tells us, when mother earth cries we stand up or she will die and we will die. I ask everyone to remember: crying Earth, rise up. Rise up with Mother Earth and say no to this pipeline. No to death! No! No! No!
State Department officials Maryruth Coleman and Jim Steele heard the testimony without comment.
8 Comments so far
Show AllDebra White Plume hits the nail on the head, as she hits the podium with her fist and shouts "No to death!" The time has come to choose between life on Earth and our deadly industrial habits. Whether or not this pipeline sprouts leaks or creates jobs or makes for energy independence: burning this much damned dirty oil is suicidal.
For indigenous people and ecosystems of Alberta and for innocent children of the new millennium alike, it is genocidal in a more modern, profound sense: a slayer of multiple futures, cultures, and genotypes. Unprecedented violations call for novel protections. The time approaches: once the environmental criminal Obama endorses this attack on mother Earth, how can we prevent it?
We are all Jews ordered to get onboard the death train, at this point. We can either obey, or find a more viable option.
your are so right.....we need to find another option if this thing goes through......it willl not stand.......this pipeline is a line in the sand......
Is the Yellowstone leak cleaned up yet?
Kind of like asking if the Gulf is cleaned up isn't? Yet they still keep trying don't they. I think we need to keep asking and demanding answers.
Last I heard anything about the Yellowstone leak in July it still hadn't been cleaned up. No one monitoring it anymore? Maybe Obama could tell us how it's coming along?
Fukushima, the Gulf and Yellowstone kind of like a Katrina moment for this President, yet he remains silent.
But of course he couldn't be bothered with Katrina until his calendar was cleared.
Are Americans going to stop, even limit, their driving? "If you got it, a truck brought it." There is little you can buy that is not smeared in oily goo. There is much talk of alternative energy and little of conservation. We want our extravagant lifestyle to green up. Alas.
What part of "the urgency of now" doesn't the president get? The tarsands are a pure litmus test for him. He cannot blame the Republicans.
Hello, its so sad that alot of opponents of XL Tarsands oil do not even realize Oilybomber signed the import license about a year ago.
Glenn, you have done your homework. I said about a year ago that, unfortunately the Tar Sands was a done deal.
It is frustrating to wage more and more environmental battles without addressing overpopulation. Along with extreme wealth/power concentration, every environmental problem is a consequence of that.
Direct democracy