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Keystone Would Run Over Obama Credibility: Van Jones
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’50,000 Strong’ tell President Obama to honor his word and reject Keystone XL Pipeline. Photo Credit: SF Wood/Project Survival Media
At the largest climate change rally in US history, that was held Sunday on the National Mall in Washington DC, Van Jones said that if President Barack Obama approves the Keystone Pipeline, the first thing it will run over is Obama’s credibility.
Up to 50,000 pressure Obama to honor his word
Up to 50,000 protesters marched past the White House in the bitter cold Sunday, yelling in protest of the controversial Keystone XL project that would see an oil pipeline run across the US Midwest and, according to former green jobs czar Van Jones, would also run over Obama’s credibility if he approves it.
“This was the biggest climate change rally in US history,” said one of the organizers, head of 350.org.’s Bill McKibben.“By our count, 50,000 people gathered by the Washington Monument and then marched past the White House, demanding that President Obama block the Keystone XL pipeline and move forward toward climate action.”
To get their message across to Obama, protesters chanted “Keystone pipeline? Shut it down,” as they marched around the White House, calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone proposal and follow through on climate pledges made during his inaugural address.
There were many high points,” McKibben stated in his written statement on 350.org, first naming Van Jones who declared that “Keystone is the only presidential decision anyone will care about in 20 years.”
Van Jones, who worked in Obama’s White House in 2009 as his “green jobs czar,” made it clear in a pre-rally interview that the burgeoning anti-pipeline movement would not be bought off with other initiatives, like tougher EPA rules or more great speeches.
“I think we should take the president at his word, but make him honor his word,” Jones said. “This pipeline, if it goes through—the first thing that the pipeline runs over is the credibility of the president of the United States. That’s the first thing it runs over. He said that he’s not going to let us be a generation that cooks the earth.”
Jones continued: “If we lose, we lose everything. We’re fighting for the children of all species. This isn’t just a fight about Democrats versus Republicans in the United States. The children of all species forever are going to be impacted by what we do in this town for the next twelve to twenty-four months.
Billionaire investor Tom Steyer spoke about why the Keystone Pipeline is a bad investment and Chief Jackie Thomas explained the toll that the tar sands are taking on her neighbors, promising that they would never allow a tar sands pipeline west to the Pacific, according to McKibben.
“Movements aren’t about leaders (though without Michael Brune of the Sierra Club, or Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, this day would not have come off). Movements are about people — about all of us who put aside the things we have to do because we understand that the future is at stake.
“To see so many people make this a priority on a day when it would have been much easier (and warmer) to stay inside says a lot,” McKibben said.
“And if Obama does approve the pipeline?” asks The Nation. “Jones said it would define Obama in history’s eyes.”
“Every other gain this president has done will be erased over the next ten, twenty, thirty years by floods, by fires, by droughts, by superstorms. His legacy is on the line.”
Keystone XL supporters in the business community have argued the pipeline would create thousands of new jobs, and free the country from energy dependence on South American exporters such as Venezuela.
Environmentalists are concerned about the pollution risks inherent in the controversial tar sands method of oil production.
The George Bush administration approved the first section of the Keystone XL project that was built by Canadian company TransCanada and now sees oil transported from Alberta, Canada, to Illinois and Oklahoma.
Remaining sections of the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline have been on hold after the 2010 BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, that is still causing untold human suffering and environmental destruction.
The BP oil catastrophe “sparked widespread environmental concerns over the Keystone project, especially the possible damage to sensitive ecological zones in Nebraska,” reports Russia Today.
The recent approval of an alternative route for the pipeline has increased the chance that the Obama administration will give Keystone XL the green light.
Obama has no credibility.