[Debate] (Fwd) Tarsands pipeline arrests widen out

[Patrick Bond]

(Solidarity protest at the US Consulate in Durban, 4-5pm tomorrow, stay 
tuned for details)

Pipeline Protests: Beyond the Usual Suspects

Monday 29 August 2011

by: Madeline Ostrander, Yes! Magazine Report

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/pipeline-crosses-political-lines

Truthout

http://www.truth-out.org/pipeline-protests-beyond-usual-suspects/1314627113

On Sunday, August 21, dozens of people continued the
two-week long daily sit-in at the White House to
protest the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
(Photo: Milan Ilnyckyj / tarsandsaction [4])

Can opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline bring
conservatives back to conservation?

Several months ago, John Stansbury, a soft-spoken
professor from Omaha, Neb., took his 12-year-old
grandson to a public meeting to discuss Keystone XL
[5], the proposed mega-pipeline

that would carry oil from Canada across his home state
to the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, Stansbury knew
almost nothing about the pipeline and had never done
anything particularly political. "I'm not really an
activist," he says, a bit sheepishly. But he wanted his
grandson to "see democracy at work."

The 61-year-old civil engineer also happens to be an
expert in the transport of hazardous materials. And as
he learned more about Keystone XL, he saw a disaster in
the making. After the meeting, Stansbury began poring
over official risk assessments of the pipeline and
thought they grossly underestimated the probability of
a spill. He was so troubled that he did something he's
never done before--he courted media attention. He
drafted an independent report on the pipeline, asked
the organization Friends of the Earth to help announce
his findings, and held a press conference. He predicts
the pipeline could have approximately 91 significant
spills over the next 50 years--eight times as many as
the energy company TransCanada estimated.

Keystone XL has enough strikes against it to turn
political neophytes like Stansbury into first-time
activists, and to compel some unusual alliances between
conservatives and progressives. The pipeline was
proposed by TransCanada in 2008, but its potentially
disastrous consequences have only recently gotten
significant national attention. [6] It is designed to
transport viscous, corrosive bitumen extracted from oil
shale in Alberta. Oil shale, also known as tar sands,
is an especially dirty, expensive, polluting form of
petroleum, and scientist James Hansen says escalating
tars sands production would destroy any chance of
reining in the most disastrous effects of climate
change. Moreover, the byproducts of oil shale mining
are toxic and carcinogenic; they're already sickening
communities that live near the tar sands.

The project awaits only a rubber stamp from the State
Department before it can move forward. But
environmentalists, scientists, and activists are
pressuring Obama [7] to halt it. And the pipeline
crosses through a series of red states, where it has
met surprising resistance from some vocal opponents, in
large part because of the risks to water supplies. Both
conservatives and progressives have plenty of sour
memories of the Deepwater Horizon spill last year and
this summer's spill on the Yellowstone River. A
worst-case rupture on the Keystone line could be more
than 120 times larger than the Yellowstone spill,
according to Stansbury.

Moreover, the Plains have enough of a libertarian and
populist streak to make at least a few people
distrustful of a Canadian oil corporation and a
federal-government-led review process with little
public input. Rural conservatives have been turning out
at environmental meetings in Texas to fight the
pipeline, according to the Los Angeles Times. The
National Farmers Union has issued a strong statement on
the pipeline, opposing any project that threatens water
supplies. Ranchers and rural landowners are joining
thousands this week in Washington, D.C., to risk arrest
at sit-ins organized by Bill McKibben and a coalition
of environmental groups and scientists. Jane Kleeb,
founder of the progressive group Bold Nebraska, says
even a few Tea Partiers have joined the Washington
protests.

"We have to look beyond any political differences that
we have because we have a common goal here," says Randy
Thompson, a rancher who has become the face of pipeline
opposition in Nebraska. More than three years ago,
TransCanada sought Thompson's permission to route the
pipeline across his land. Thompson refused out of
concern for his water supply: The water table on his
ranch sits just a few feet below the surface. He began
writing letters to the editor. "I had never done that
before in my life," he says. The lifelong Republican
then sought allies at Bold Nebraska. He says it's been
occasionally awkward but worthwhile to collaborate with
a progressive organization: "It's never been easy among
our group. I would say I have gained a lot of respect
for the people I've been working with."

This month, Thompson was the poster child for a series
of Nebraska events called "I Stand with Randy." He has
submitted testimony to Congress on the pipeline and
plans to go to Washington, D.C., in October for a State
Department hearing on the pipeline. He says his
involvement has been eye-opening, and as he has learned
more about climate change and water pollution, he has
also become an opponent of oil shale mining. "This is
an ugly project from beginning to end. And when you
look at what's happening up in Canada to that beautiful
mountain area up there, turning it into a toxic waste
dump, that's just not right," he says.

Pipeline opponents have been especially vocal in
Thompson's home state, and a random survey last fall of
500 Nebraskans showed that nearly half oppose the
pipeline when they are given details about its impact.
But people like Thompson are still the exception. The
majority of conservatives aren't ready to shake hands
with climate activists. And there are few signs that
Republicans in Congress are listening to pipeline
opponents. Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns has
raised concerns about Keystone XL, but Republicans in
the House have voted to fast-track the pipeline and
force Obama to decide by November 1.

Still, Americans on both ends of the political spectrum
are fed up [8] with corporations' deep influence in
politics, and many who have been following the pipeline
proposal don't think a Canadian company should be
allowed to push rural communities around in the United
States. The pipeline looks like an issue that could
bring at least some conservatives back to conservation
for the first time in many years--and perhaps even
become a means for awakening more of the public to the
threats posed by climate change. [9]

This week at the White House, pipeline protesters made
a point of showing up in business clothes. One of the
key messages of the demonstration is that average,
law-abiding Americans are ready to take climate change
seriously. The pipeline could be a rare moment for
Obama to act on his commitment to post-partisan
politics, make good on his promise to act on climate
change, and stop one of the world's most
environmentally disastrous projects. Madeline Ostrander
[11]

     * News

Source URL:http://www.truth-out.org/pipeline-protests-beyond-usual-suspects/1314627113

Links:
[1]http://www.truth-out.org/print/5723
[2]http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/5723
[3]http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/pipeline-crosses-political-lines
[4]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarsandsaction/6067379756/
[5]http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/prevent-a-tar-sands-disaster
[6]http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/the-people-v-the-pipeline-time-to-join-in
[7]http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/a-very-civil-civil-disobedience
[8]http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/brooke-jarvis/citizens-united
[9]http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-action/climate-action-what-will-it-take-to-avert-disastrous-climate-change
[10]http://www.truth-out.org/printmail
[11]http://www.truth-out.org/madeline-ostrander/1314627084
[12]http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[13]https://members.truth-out.org/donate