Forty-eight
individuals were arrested outside the White House on Wednesday afternoon as they
urged President Obama to take a strong stand on climate change by rejecting the
Keystone XL pipeline and embracing a clean energy future without fossil
fuels.
Among the
notable leaders involved in the civil disobedience were Michael Brune, executive
director of the Sierra Club, which made news recently by declaring its leaders
and membership would end an almost 120 year ban on participating in acts of
civil disobedience. Large cheers
went up in the gathered crowd of supporters as Brune was led away in
handcuffs.
“For the first
time in the Sierra Club’s 120-year history, we have joined the ranks of
visionaries of the past and present to engage in civil disobedience, knowing
that the issue at hand is so critical, it compels the strongest defensible
action,” said Brune prior to his arrest. “We cannot afford to allow the
production, transport, export and burning of the dirtiest oil on Earth via the
Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama must deny the pipeline and take decisive
steps to address climate disruption, the most significant issue of our
time.”
Other notable
arrests included environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Bill McKibben,
Founder of 350.org; Julian Bond, civil rights leader and former president of the
NAACP; and Daryl Hannah, an actress who has become well known for her climate
activism from previous acts of civil disobedience in Washington and
elsewhere.
After blocking
the sidewalk in front of the White House-with some attaching themselves to the
tall iron fence-and refusing to move when asked by Capitol Police, the activists
were arrested one-by-one, handcuffed and led away.
“The threat to
our planet’s climate is both grave and urgent,” said Julian Bond, who was among
the last to be taken into custody. “Although President Obama has declared his
own determination to act, much that is within his power to accomplish remains
undone, and the decision to allow the construction of a pipeline to carry
millions of barrels of the most-polluting oil on Earth from Canada’s tar sands
to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. is in his hands. I am proud today to stand before
my fellow citizens and declare, ‘I am willing to go to jail to stop this wrong.’
The environmental crisis we face today demands nothing
less.”
“We really
shouldn’t have to be put in handcuffs to stop KXL-our nation’s leading climate
scientists have told us it’s dangerous folly, and all the recent Nobel Peace
laureates have urged us to set a different kind of example for the world, so the
choice should be obvious,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben. “But given the
amount of money on the other side, we’ve had to spend our bodies, and we’ll
probably have to spend them again.”
Wednesday's
action was designed as a smaller but dramatic preface for a rally scheduled for
Sunday that organizers say will bring many thousands of activists from all over
the country to the White House gates to ask Obama to move "forward on climate".
Common Dreams
ISH/ARA
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