NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT
Like so many young Americans I was filled with pride, patriotism and excitement the night America elected Barack Obama as president. The president has failed to deliver on his campaign promises.
Illegal wars have been waged, bases left open, mountaintops removed, and most importantly, America remains firmly on a business-as-usual carbon emissions path. The president’s failure to fight for the environment will be his largest legacy to my generation.
In 2010, the President raised the white flag on achieving climate legislation. Instead of fighting, the President fled the scene when terms like cap-and-trade became politically unpopular.
In March, his Interior Department put 7,400 acres of Wyoming land up for auction to coal companies, a decision that will result in as many planet-warming gasses released as 300 coal-fired generators.
Now in the summer of 2011 the president will decide whether to allow a pipeline built from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, called Keystone XL. If allowed, this pipeline will unleash dirty Canadian tar-sands crude, the most landscape-ravaging, water-consuming, energy-intensive, climate-destroying way to move a car.
Two thousand Americans will be risking arrest at the White House in August and September in opposition to the pipeline.
Another bad decision will not be accepted quietly.
Will Greene
Undergraduate
