Bill McKibben on tar sands, Obama, geoengineering and population growth

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/oct/06/bill-mckibben-keystone-pipeline-oil


Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben at his house in Ripton, Vermont. Photograph: Corey Hendrickson/Polaris/For The Guardian

Bill McKibben, one of the US's leading environmental writers and campaigners, visited the UK briefly earlier this week to teach a course entitled Building Social Movements and Organising for Change at the Schumacher College in Devon. He was scheduled to also give a lecture this weekend at the Schumacher Centenary Festival in Bristol, but will now deliver it via video-conference as he had to return early to Washington DC for Friday's final hearing into the proposed 1,711-mile Keystone XL pipeline that, if built, would transport oil extracted from Canada's tar sand fields across the Mid-West and down to ports in the Gulf of Mexico. McKibben was arrested in August during a protest aimed at trying to convince President Obama not to authorise the pipeline.

We began the interview by discussing his battle to stop the pipeline…

BM: This pipeline fight has turned into the most interesting environmental battle of modern years. The odds are still probably against us, but they are better than they were a little while ago because people are really starting to pay attention and realise what a terrible idea it is.

LH: What's going to happen on Friday?

BM: It's just the last hearing and they will say they are not going to make any decisions for another 6-8 weeks. Friday will be another rally, but the big date we are heading towards is 6 November, which is exactly one year before the next election. On that day, we are going to try and circle the White House with people which I'm not sure is something that has ever been done before. We'll all be carrying signs from the president's last election campaign. No attacks on him, just his own words. "It's time to end the tyranny of oil"; "In my administration, the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will begin to heal". The tag line will be something like: "If you didn't mean it, you shouldn't have said it. Stop the pipeline".