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By Timothy Gardner and Bruce Wallace
WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES Nov 10 (Reuters) - For
environmentalists dedicated to killing it, President Barack
Obama's rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline unleashed
a moment of euphoria. Activists celebrated with tequila shots at
Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco and in Lafayette
Square across from the White House, site of the first
anti-Keystone protests in 2011, when to most people it was just
another pipeline.
But last Friday's presidential "no" to the 1,200-mile (1931
km) pipeline out of Alberta's oil sands may signal more than
just a single, if remarkable, win for environmentalists. It
stands to sharpen the fissure in the green movement between
those who believe direct action can jar the world off its fossil
fuel habit, and others who say only a collaborative approach
that engages governments and corporations can deliver the
large-scale solutions required to keep global temperatures in
check.
For now, defeating Keystone has given oxygen to green groups
that focus on keeping the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground
before they even are burned.
Belief that the world must refrain from extracting vast
amounts of its known oil, coal and gas reserves has been gaining
scientific and political traction among those who argue the
humanity cannot risk allowing global temperatures to rise by
more than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
For many environmentalists, that urgency means less focus on
lengthy international negotiations, such the Paris summit this
December that seeks a consensus among world leaders on how to
cut carbon emissions.
Instead, they favor demonstrations and legal actions that
target not just energy projects like the oil sands, but the
supporting infrastructure of railways, ports and pipelines that
brings the most carbon intensive energy to market.
That spirit - dubbed "blockadia" by author Naomi Klein - has
seen citizen activists delay coal exports to Asia at U.S. West
Coast terminals, win a moratorium against oil and gas fracking
in New York state, and led to "kayaktivists" swarming oil rigs
leaving Seattle's port as part of Royal Dutch Shell's RDSa.L
exploratory drilling in the Arctic this summer.
Keystone's defenders argue that its opponents scored a
hollow victory, insisting the crude will still reach U.S.
refiners by rail.
But it is uncertain whether railroads can meet the demand at
a competitive cost. Last month, Shell canceled its $2 billion,
80,000 barrel a day Carmon Creek project in the oil sands,
citing a lack of transport infrastructure.
And activists have vowed to ramp up efforts to block crude
oil moving by train as well.
THEATRICS
To critics, stopping a single project like Keystone puts
feel-good theatrics ahead of real gains in cutting carbon
emissions.
"It's all the stuff people love to do," says Michael
Shellenberger, executive director of the Breakthrough Institute
that contends only technological change, such as increased
capacity of natural gas fracking and nuclear power, has the
potential to displace oil and coal.
"The media publicity, the fund-raising, the mass membership
mobilization are all incentives to do more of these acts." he
says. "But underneath all that symbolism, only technology has
the answers to a problem of this scale, and for that we need to
get governments to act."
Shellenberger and others credit low global crude prices and
a world awash in oil and gas for creating conditions that
allowed Obama to turn down Keystone without suffering the
political pain that might accompany higher gas prices.
"The president understands energy isn't an issue when prices
are low," says Kevin Book, an energy policy analyst at ClearView
Energy Partners in Washington.
Activists counter that years spent lobbying Washington and
other capitals have produced meager results, allowing global
carbon emissions to continue to rise. They were stung by the
failure to get a strong treaty out of the 2009 global climate
talks in Copenhagen, and by the collapse of U.S. cap and trade
legislation the following year that would have regulated
industrial carbon emissions.
"With all the lobbyists on earth, environmentalists couldn't
get cap and trade done," says Bill McKibben, a
journalist-turned-climate activist who built his 350.org
movement through the spread of his writings on digital media.
"That's what's changed: there is now a big, big movement
that was not there five years ago," he says. McKibben was among
the hundreds of demonstrators arrested in 2011 in front of the
White House.
Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, the oldest
grassroots environmental group in the U.S., says its members
grew uneasy with what they saw as Obama's "de-prioritization" of
climate change after 2010.
When they saw Obama start to express more skepticism about
Keystone's merits in his second term, they ramped up their
direct action. Now, says Brune, "there are hardly any new
proposals for energy infrastructure that don't have significant
protest movements attached to them."
ATLANTIC OCEAN TO POWDER RIVER
Activists say their new targets include the U.S. Interior
Department over the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land,
exploratory oil drilling off the Atlantic coast and the strip
mining of coal in the vast Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
A similar strategy has guided campaigns against fossil fuel
extraction for indigenous groups from Peru to Canada, and in
India, where Greenpeace has attempted to block projects ranging
from hydro power dams to coal mines.
Martin Kaiser, head of international climate politics at
Greenpeace, said the group has dialed down efforts to influence
government negotiations in the run-up to Paris in favor of
direct action in its campaign to achieve total reliance on
renewable energy by 2050.
At the final meetings before Paris in Bonn last month,
Greenpeace had 15 activists tracking the negotiations - half the
number who attended such preparatory talks ahead of the
Copenhagen summit.
"Our strategy has changed," said Kaiser. "We are putting a
lot of our effort into those countries which are major
emitters," citing campaigns in China, the United States, South
Africa and Brazil.
Still, there have been setbacks. The Indian government last
week expelled Greenpeace, ostensibly for violating financing
laws but clearly after the organization became a thorn in the
side of authorities.
Activists acknowledge that for direct action to succeed,
they need projects like Keystone that resonate with the wider
public.
"Keystone put a fire under everybody's ass that had been
lost," said ForestEthics communications director Eddie Scher on
Friday, making his way to Lafayette Square to toast the win.
Scher says the pipeline debate offered a simple perspective
on the often complicated politics of climate change.
"There is no such thing as "clean oil" but if we are going
to get serious about dealing with climate disruption, the worst
stuff is what you stop first," he said. "And we have a long
list."