Making History: Remembering and Continuing the Keystone XL Campaign

Article and photos by Philip Wight, Metta blogger.

 

In studying the history of nonviolence, too often we look to the distant past and neglect the uncertain present. As September draws to a close, advocates of nonviolence should reflect upon last years’ campaign of nonviolent direct action against the Keystone XL pipeline—and not forget that our victories are never permanent.

The Keystone XL is a proposed 1,700 mile pipeline that would deliver Canadian crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands to Texas refineries and ports on the Gulf of Mexico. The “XL” is an expansion from the already-constructed 2,147 mile “Keystone” pipeline that connects the Tar Sands to refineries in Illinois.

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While environmentalists raised objections and concerns for the pipeline, a unified movement did not coalesce until ecology activist Bill McKibbon took up the fight. McKibbon sought counsel from NASA’s chief climatologist, Jim Hansen, who concluded the pipeline would be “game over for the planet.” A vast amount of carbon would be delivered from the Tar Sands via the pipeline to consumers worldwide and would accelerate the greenhouse effect and climate change.

McKibbon and Hansen both argued the effects of climate change are most harmful to the planet’s billion poorest inhabitants—those least able to cope with rising seas, droughts, and stronger storms. In the tradition of environmental justice, they concluded climate change was a sneaky form of violence—called by one author “slow violence”— propagated by inaction and business-as-usual.

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In formulating the campaign against the Keystone XL—named “Tar Sands Action”—McKibbon looked to the history of nonviolent direct action. While teaching at Middlebury College, McKibbon had his students read Taylor Branch’s trilogy of Martin Luther King Jr. and held discussions on how King’s tactics could be applied to the environmental movement. In an open letter to the environmental community, McKibbon channeled King’s wisdom and declared “We don’t have the money to compete [with corporate power]…but we do have our bodies.”

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In June, McKibbon and ten other famous environmentalists called for civil disobedience to stop the Keystone XL. On August 20th, 70 people were arrested, including McKibbon. Each day more activists descended upon the White House and were arrested for nonviolently protesting the “slow violence” of the Keystone XL pipeline. By August 25^th, 322 were arrested. On the 29^th, an additional 140 were arrested—including James Hansen and several prominent religious leaders. By September 2^nd, 1,252 people had been arrested and the fight against the Keystone XL was a national news event.

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On November 6^th, 2011, McKibbon and the Tar Sands Action campaign returned to the White House for a larger and more inclusive direct action campaign. On the sixth, twelve thousand people encircled the White House and called for environmental justice. Four days later, President Obama announced the pipeline permit would be delayed until at least 2013, pending a revised environmental permit. The movement had won its first major victory.

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Yet McKibbon and environmentalists know the Keystone XL is far from dead. As Brazilian environmentalist Jose Lutzenberger argued, “In the environmental movement, our defeats are always final, our victories always provisional. What you save today can be destroyed tomorrow, don’t you see?”

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Indeed, as you read this, the southern route of the pipeline is being built through Texas. While TransCanada needs State Department approval for the pipeline to cross the border of Canada and the United States, they already have permission to build the pipeline within large sections of the United States. But environmental justice activists are rising to the challenge.

Over the past few months, dozens of activists have been arrested for civil disobedience. Activists under the name “Tar Sands Blockade” have chained themselves to machinery, blocked construction trucks, and used their bodies in the fight for environmental justice.  Recently, eight people climbed trees and have refused to leave—taking “sit-ins” to a whole new elevation and adopting the tactics of the Redwood activists of the 1980s and 90s. A strange new coalition between environmentalists and property rights advocates—many of them associating with the Tea Party—has been leading the renewed fight against the pipeline.

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What is certain is that the history of nonviolence will continue to inspire and inform our struggles for social and environmental justice. Yet let us not merely be unwavering proponents of nonviolence in hindsight (everyone is a radical in hindsight); let the truth and power of nonviolent direct action guide us to a just and cooler future.

(PS: Check out Metta’s Roadmap to locate environmental resistance action in a vision of a whole movement.)