A Carbon Bomb Defused: Obama Rejects Keystone XL in Historic Win for Environmental Activism
(DEMOCRACY NOW) Interview, November 9, 2015 — The environmental movement is celebrating one of its biggest victories to date: President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. After years of review and one of the most vocal grassroots campaigns this country has seen in decades, Obama announced Friday he will not allow Keystone on his watch. The pipeline would have sent 830,000 barrels of crude every day from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The fight to block the pipeline saw activists chaining themselves to construction machinery along the pipeline’s route, hundreds getting arrested in acts of civil disobedience outside the White House, and hundreds of thousands taking part in the largest climate change march in history, the People’s Climate March, just over a year ago. We are joined by two guests deeply involved in the victorious fight to stop the Keystone XL: Clayton Thomas-Muller, a leading organizer and writer on environmental justice and indigenous rights in Canada, and Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska, a political advocacy group that emerged as one of Keystone XL’s chief opponents.