A lot has happened since 65 people (myself included) were arrested in front of the White House on August 20th during a protest of the planned 1,400-mile pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. For starters, over a thousand more people from across the country were arrested in the subsequent two weeks, including big names like NASA climate scientist James Hansen, author Naomi Klein and actress Daryl Hannah. Support from high places soon followed, from the New York Times editorial page to nine Nobel Peace Laureates.

Momentum kept rolling throughout September with protests popping up at Obama campaign events and an impressive day of civil disobedience where over 200 people were arrested on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. As attention continued to swirl around an issue that had only weeks prior been known by environmentalists and people living along the proposed pipeline route, cracks within government began to emerge.

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One of the organizers of the event, President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Dave Coles, is the first to climb the fence and be arrested. Maude Barlow (far left) was in the first wave over the fence and was led away by police.

Ever feel like you aren’t where you should be? It’s okay, we all do. Yet, sometimes, we feel, without a single doubt, we are in precisely the right place at precisely the right moment.

A meticulously-planned civil disobedience uprising demanding climate justice and the honoring of the rights of indigenous people, felt just like that. Even before the drums.

The right place is a hill which belonged to the Algonquin First Nation for centuries, yet is currently occupied by Canada’s capitol buildings and is known as Parliament Hill.

The right time is the blue sky morning of Monday, September 26th. Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation and organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, opens a solidarity rally by thanking the Algonquin First Nation for use of their land.

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Here’s a moving video summary of the two-week Tar Sands Action that ended last Saturday. Of course, it didn’t really end—just “phase one.” As last mentioned on this blog, Bill McKibben and the other organizers are planning something big on October 7th or 8th, when the State Department has its final hearing on the pipeline.

Speaking of moving things, McKibben’s other activist outlet, 350.org, will be launching its next international day of action on September 24 with a worldwide rally called Moving Planet. They are expecting thousands of events around the world of people delivering a climate message on foot, skates, bike, boat—really anything that moves and doesn’t spew carbon into the atmosphere.

Judging by 350′s last couple of global actions, it will no doubt be visually stunning. More importantly, though, given the teeth that sprouted outside the White House a few weeks ago, it may also be more than just awareness raising. As McKibben wrote in his invitation to Moving Planet back in April:

Our friends in Tunisia, Egypt, and throughout the Middle East have proven that change can come quickly. The greatest achievements have been without violence, but not without sacrifice. They’ve done it with bravery, and also good humor; with the internet and also with face-to-face organizing. They’ve got things unstuck in countries that seemed rusted shut. They’re our inspiration for the months ahead.

Although the White House has not yet made any official statement regarding the two-week Tar Sands Action that came to an end in Washington DC yesterday with a total of 1,252 arrests, President Obama’s decision to abandon a new air pollution rule on Friday spoke volumes. He affirmed his willingness to ignore the advice of his own government scientists in favor of business lobbyists—even at the expense of the environment and health of the American people.

How could the Tar Sands Action organizers leave Washington on that note? Sure, they had just completed the largest environmental civil disobedience in decades. But such an admirable feat would be pointless if all the energy that went in to pulling it off were allowed to dissipate. Thankfully, Bill McKibben announced that the movement will continue organizing, with a Phase Two announcement within 48 hours.

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The Tar Sands Action that’s resulted in over 1,000 arrests in front of the White House for the better part of two weeks will be wrapping up Saturday with what’s expected to be the largest sit-in yet. A rally that’s been separately organized by the Sierra Club, 350.org and Interfaith Power and Light will also be taking place across the street in Lafayette Square Park. All this will be a capstone to what’s been an undeniably historic moment for climate activism, if not American activism in general.

There aren’t many issues that have inspired so many people to take such a bold stand. And as Bill McKibben has pointed out several times, it’s not just the usual suspects. Those risking arrest have included young and old, people from all walks of life and parts of the country—including actress Daryl Hannah and the nation’s top climate scientist James Hansen, who invoked science royalty as part of his reasoning when he told reporters “Einstein said to think and not act is a crime.”

Despite all this, the White House has yet to really comment on the action—even with the press corps pushing for answers, the New York Times running a favorable front page story, Google News giving the action top billing, and Al Gore offering his seal of approval. One has to ask what it will take for the president and his administration to take notice publicly. This silence may be due to the fact that the action is set to wrap up tomorrow. Without the prospect of continued pressure, the Obama administration may think it simply rode out the storm.

If so, that means the ball is still in the organizers’ court. But considering all they’ve managed to pull off, that isn’t a bad thing. It just means that starting Sunday the next phase of action had better begin.

Since the start of Saturday’s Tar Sands Action in Washington DC, 275 people have been arrested in front of the White House—with nearly 2,000 more expected to follow—as part of an effort to pressure the president into rejecting a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. Already, there are signs that it’s succeeding. The New York Times has published an editorial opposing the pipeline, and the nation’s largest environmental organizations—which rarely endorse protest action—are calling on President Obama to block it, saying, “There is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone XL pipeline, and those of the protesters being arrested daily outside the White House.”

While this by no means guarantees a favorable decision—given that the oil industry usually gets its way—the odds are improving, as many more people across the nation, and not just along the route of the pipeline, know about the issue. However, this mounting pressure on Obama, completely absent a week ago, isn’t due to just the sheer number of arrests, or the fact that it’s now the largest civil disobedience protest in the history of the climate movement. Impressive as that may sound, we should all know by now, given the ongoing wars and myriad other injustices, that the size of a protest is not always the determining factor.

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Waging Nonviolence editor Bryan Farrell (in handcuffs, right) being arrested alongside activist and journalist Bill McKibben (in handcuffs, center). Photo by Shadia Fayne Wood.

On Saturday, Waging Nonviolence editors Eric Stoner and Bryan Farrell were arrested while reporting on and participating in the Tar Sands Action against the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which Bryan wrote about last week. They will be held longer than expected—until today, we’re told.

I received a phone message from Bryan on Saturday night, in which he said that he is well—and, in fact, is sharing a jail cell with Bill McKibben, one of the action’s leading organizers. Our main concern was that Eric, who has cystic fibrosis, will have access to the medicine he needs daily, but it appears that he has been sent to a hospital for treatments. Sunday was also his birthday, so we were anxious that it was celebrated properly in the slammer.

Bryan concluded his message on a high note:

This is really something. I just hope that more people show up tomorrow, that this doesn’t scare them, because that’s what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to intimidate the rest of the protesters.

He got his wish. On Sunday, 50 more protesters were arrested.

Ironically, one of the reasons that the Park Police are being so aggressive is that they’re acting on behalf of some strange interpretation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s memory. According to the action organizers’ press release:

On a phone call late this afternoon, U.S. Park Police told organizers of the sit-in that the jail time was expressly intended as a deterrent for future participants.

The Park Police were especially concerned that sit-ins would continue during the week of events beginning on August 28 surrounding the dedication of a new memorial to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest exponents of creative nonviolence.

Keep waging, guys!

Starting Saturday, farmers, ranchers, Gulf Coast residents, faith leaders and climate activists from across the United States and Canada will be marching on the White House, holding sit-ins and risking arrest every day for two weeks because President Obama, with the support of the State Department, may soon allow the construction of an oil pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast—a decision that would not only endanger farmland and drinking water, but also, in the words of NASA scientist James Hansen, signal “game over for the climate.”

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