What a day! Over 40,000 people poured into the streets of Washington, DC today to push President Obama to take our nation “Forward on Climate” and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our team here at 350.org had expected a crowd, but this was MASSIVE. Volunteers from around the country organized 130 buses to get people to the rally and it showed: there were people of all ages from Florida to Wisconsin to California here today.

Students especially showed up in force. I ran into young people from all across the country, many of whom are hard at work running fossil fuel divestment campaigns on their campuses. This is the next generation of the climate movement, just as comfortable negotiating in a board room as they are marching in the streets.

Our message for President Obama was crystal clear: time to live up to your rhetoric, take us forward on climate, and say no the Keystone XL pipeline. As former White House green jobs advisor (and movement hero) Van Jones said from the stage, “This will define your legacy, Mr. President.”

The speakers up on stage today represented the full diversity of our movement, from indigenous leaders across the United States and Canada, to clean energy investors like Tom Steyer, to environmental leaders like Mike Brune and Bill McKibben, to civil and voting rights activists like Rosario Dawson and Rev. Lennox Yearwood.

The march today looked like the movement that elected President Obama. Now, it’s time for him to join us in standing up to Big Oil and saying no to Keystone XL. Because this movement isn’t going anywhere. We’re, to borrow a phrase, fired up and ready to go. And we’re not stopping until the President takes action.  

Here's a press release from today's absolutely incredible rally in Washington, DC: 

Washington, D.C., February 17, 2013 – Today, during President’s Day weekend, more than 35,000 people are marching to the President's doorstep to support immediate action to contain climate change. People from more than 30 states across the country whose land, homes and health is being threatened by the climate crisis, as well as students, scientists, indigenous community members and many others are participating in this largest climate rally in U.S. history.

“For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work. We shouldn't have to be here--science should have decided our course long ago. But it takes a movement to stand up to all that money,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

Rally participants are calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and put limits on dangerous carbon pollution from the nation's dirtiest power plants. Much of President Obama's legacy will rest squarely on his response, resolve, and leadership in fighting the climate crisis. Rally participants are looking for him move forward on his recent State of the Union address declaration when he said, “For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.”

“Twenty years from now on President’s Day, people will want to know what the president did in the face of rising sea levels, record droughts and furious storms brought on by climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.  “President Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children.  Today, we are asking him to use that pen to to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built.”

The Keystone XL tar sands project would pipe some of the dirtiest oil on the planet through the breadbasket of America to be shipped overseas through the Gulf of Mexico. It would be a disaster for our climate, producing tar sands crude that kicks out two or three times as much carbon pollution as producing conventional crude oil.

“The Yinka Dene Alliance of British Columbia is seeing the harm from climate change to our peoples and our waters,” said Chief Jacqueline Thomas, immediate past Chief of the Saik’uz First Nation in British Columbia and co-founder Yinka Dene Alliance (“People of the Earth”). “We see the threat of taking tar sands out of the Earth and bringing it through our territories and over our rivers. The harm being done to people in the tar sands region can no longer be Canada’s dirty secret. We don’t have the billions of dollars that industry has. But we do have  our faith that people will do the right thing to protect Mother Earth. The Forward on Climate Rally shows that we are not alone in the fight to stop tar sands expansion and tackle climate change.”

This post has been developed in collaboration with our friends and allies at the UK Tar Sands Network, People & Planet, Campaign against Climate Change, and Pembrokeshire Friends of the Earth.

The US says no to tar sands

Today in Washington DC, tens of thousands of people are taking part in the biggest climate rally in US history. They are asking President Obama to move #ForwardOnClimate and, specifically, to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The President’s imminent decision will have momentous consequences. The KXL pipeline is ‘a fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.’ If the tar sands industry is allowed to expand as it plans to, it will be ‘game over’ for the climate – and the ramifications will affect people across the world. If the pipeline is rejected it will be a huge leap towards reining in the world's most destructive industry.

First Nations say no to tar sands

First Nations in Canada are on the frontline of the highly polluting tar sands development, and have suffered for decades as their lands, food and water sources are slowly poisoned. Many communities have been actively speaking out, and taking legal action, against the government and industry. In recent months there has been an explosion of grassroots Indigenous-led activism, with the #IdleNoMore movement, a response to the Canadian government's infamous Bill C-45 – a bundle of laws that further strips away First Nations’ abilities to assert their treaty rights, protect their waterways, and say 'no' to polluting projects on their land. From Europe we do our best to support First Nations communities who are struggling to protect the air they breathe and water they drink. Their struggle to protect Mother Earth is our struggle to protect the climate.

KXL - bringing tar sands oil to Europe?

President Obama’s decision over whether to approve KXL affects us in Europe too. In order to justify its catastrophic expansion plans, the tar sands industry needs to find new markets to export its dirty oil to. The aim of building the KXL pipeline is to bring tar sands oil down to Texas so it can be exported. Europe is being eyed up as a key future market. In fact, a US company called Valero is currently drawing up plans to bring KXL oil into the UK via Wales. The local community in Pembrokeshire have vowed to resist this.

How can we stop this?

We can, of course, send our solidarity and support to our friends in the US and Canada who are working so hard to stop KXL and other tar sands infrastructure ever being built. But there is something crucial for us in Europe to do too. A key piece of climate legislation is currently going through the EU. Known as the ‘Fuel Quality Directive’ (FQD), it would acknowledge that tar sands oil is far more polluting than conventional oil, and strongly discourage its use in Europe. If passed, it will effectively stop tar sands becoming commercially viable in Europe, making it extremely difficult for Valero to continue with their plans for Pembroke, and send a strong message to Canada and the rest of the world that tar sands is dirty oil and we do not want it.

The FQD under threat

For the last two years, a powerful coalition of oil companies and the Canadian government has been aggressively lobbying the EU and its member states to prevent inclusion of the tar sands in the FQD. This unprecedented lobbying effort has succeeded in stalling the process and persuading key member states - in particular the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands - to block the decision. Another vote is coming up later this year. Now is the time for the citizens of Europe to come together and demand our leaders do the right thing and keep tar sands out of Europe!

Europe says no to tar sands

On this momentous day of climate action we are joining the struggles of communities resisting extreme energy worldwide, from KXL protesters in Washington, to First Nations in Alberta, to the community of Pembrokeshire in Wales trying to keep tar sands fuel away from their shores.

Please sign this petition to support the community of Pembrokeshire in advocating for the FQD, and show the world that Europe says NO to tar sands.