By Jeff Ordower, 350 Action
The Keystone XL Pipeline defeat offers a key reminder of our movement’s power
In the fall of 2011, 350.org was a brand new organization facing an urgent need to help stop a massive pipeline that most people had not yet heard about. In consultation with tribal organizations, ranchers and inside lobbyists, 350.org put out a public call for people to come and engage in civil disobedience at the White House in opposition to the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. KXL would move millions of gallons of Tar Sands Oil to market and have severe environmental and human rights impacts. And like with many other fossil fuel infrastructure projects, at first there seemed to be little chance of getting the Obama administration to deny its permits.
During those two weeks of civil disobedience in 2011, 1253 people were arrested outside the White House. Yet in November 2011, despite this public pressure, the U.S. State Department issued an environmental impact statement (EIS) favorable to the proposal. This did not quell the resistance—it inspired it to go deeper and led to a four year campaign that brought in the whole climate movement against KXL. This powerful movement culminated with the Obama administration officially denying the Keystone XL permit.
Keystone XL was an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign, with Mitt Romney promising to build the pipeline. You can learn more about the arc of the campaign in this article.
Lessons from recent history: Marriage equality & protection for Dreamers
Other organizations and activists pushed President Obama along similar lines. Undocumented youth took great risk to disrupt his fundraisers and events, eventually leading to the creation of the DACA protections for Dreamers (undocumented youth who came to the U.S. when they were small children).
Organizers demanding marriage equality followed a similar path, moving Obama from his 2008 campaign’s dismissal of marriage equality to his support of same-sex marriage in 2012. Yet Obama’s record is complicated, as we know that when Obama was first a candidate, as early as 1996, he expressed his support for same-sex marriage. We can draw similar parallels with VP Harris—she has supported a Green New Deal in the past and opposed fracking, so even if she isn’t leading with those promises now, we have historical precedent backing our belief in our movement to get her back to the commitments we need once in office.
Looking farther back in history, we see similar patterns
On Bloody Sunday, in March 1965, 600 courageous activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and faced brutal attacks from the state police. This ultimately helped galvanize the nation and move Lyndon Johnson to full-throated support of the Voting Rights Act.
Huge labor unrest during the Depression led Franklin Roosevelt to pass the Wagner Act, changing the rules for workers to organize. While historians disagree about whether he uttered the famous words to labor leaders, “if you want this, then go out and make me do it!”, we understand the unique power social movements, combined with a moveable target in power, has in winning concrete change.
This is a major piece of our calculus in 350 Action’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for President. We know candidates and their teams put their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing in putting out their policy positions. We know that there are powerful monied fossil fuel and finance interests that have the ear of both political parties. We know that it’s not a fair fight, and that millions of dollars of campaign contributions hold enormous influence but should not be more important than millions of people.
VP Harris wants to do the right thing on climate
VP Harris has spoken passionately about the effects of climate change, and being from California, she is certainly all too familiar with the impacts of the wildfires. The Biden-Harris administration passed the IRA—and while the IRA wasn’t perfect, it showed a groundbreaking and historic investment in committing substantial resources to renewable energy infrastructure.
We certainly do not believe that a Harris administration alone will make the plan for the U.S. to fully own its responsibility in advancing climate justice. Nor should we cede that much power to any one leader. But we have strong reason to believe that a Harris administration would both believe in climate science and be susceptible to public pressure and power—as opposed to an administration of climate denialists. That difference is not only significant, it is crucial for people and the planet.
We believe that the climate movement can exceed the power that we collectively wielded against KXL to win climate justice through emissions reductions, fair funding at the global level for climate adaptation and a just transition, affordable, renewable energy, and making progress on the pernicious role of militarism on the world and our climate. We believe that electing Kamala Harris gives us the field of play on which we can fight for what we need to win.