Obama Will Stop Keystone XL Pipeline, Says Climate Change Godfather

Oglala Sioux Tribal President Bryan Brewer joined about 300 people
in a nonviolent direct-action training called Moccasins on the Ground
held recently in preparation for stopping the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

Update: Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations Surpass 400 PPM Milestone, for the first time in human history, reports NOAA.

James Hansen, known as the "Godfather of Climate Change," writes in a new commentary on his Columbia University Web site that he believes President Obama will stop the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is opposed by environmentalists, climate scientists, and many Native American activists because the emissions from energy products produced from the tar sands "gook," as accurately described by Dr. Hansen, would inject into the atmosphere "more than twice the carbon from all of the oil burned in human history."

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Hansen compares the production and burning of energy products from tar sands as "equivalent to burning coal to power your automobile. . . ."

Concludes Hansen: "The common presumption that President Obama is going to approve the Keystone XL pipeline is wrong, in my opinion. The State Department must provide an assessment to President Obama. Secretary of State John Kerry is expert on the climate issue and has long been one of the most thoughtful members of our government. I cannot believe that Secretary Kerry would let his and President Obama's legacies go down the tar sands drain."

Carl Sagan once said of protecting our climate from nuclear catastrophe: "We can safeguard the planetary civilization and the human family if we so choose."

I wonder how firmly such sentiment resides in President Obama. The answer is not clear at this point. Tell the president that the XL pipeline needs to be stopped.

Read the Oglala Sioux news and understand that the fate of our planet, literally, rests in the actions of our president and what we, as citizens of the world, do to protect our planet for the sake of all of our grandchildren. You better believe the energy extraction industry and the Republican Party don't care, and are intent on destruction on a planetary scale.

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes of the politics of Big Oil and the Republican Party: "[T]here is nothing patriotic, moral or religious about Big Oil. A storied history of perfidy and greed has distinguished these companies among the most treasonous and piratical of all American business enterprises."