McKibben Leads Group of Keystone XL Protesters on March Around White House

Environmental activists protest against the Keystone XL pipeline on 18 November 2012. Photograph: 350.org

Yesterday Bill McKibben's 350.org led a group of marchers around the White House, hoping to renew pressure on President Obama to block the Keystone pipeline.  The Guardian wrote this piece about the protest.

I was most impressed by the fact that the march was only planned ten days ago.  Probably they needed to see who would be president before they could plan it.  But they didn't let the timeline stop them.  I've met organizers who insist that it takes six months to plan an event, which is fine, and I'm sure if 350.org had been calling for this since May they would have had more than 3,000 people at yesterday's event.  But, hey, they had 3,000 people at yesterday's event!  That's awesome.

McKibben is always writing about how amazed he gets at the response he gets to his initiatives.  I'm not.  PEOPLE WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD ALREADY!  For awhile it seemed like whenever McKibben said "Jump", people would respond "How high?" and he'd put his index finger and thumb about an inch apart and say "This high".  Clearly that's changing, but I still wish he'd push harder.

I think people would do a LOT more if he asked.  I think we could have had a huge impact on the November elections, and certainly could have forced the crisis into the discussion during the presidential debates.

Those of us who get how serious this crisis is know how little time we have.  We all should ramp up our sense of urgency.

Still, though, major kudos to Bill McKibben and the 350 team!

CH

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