UPDATE: first picture submitted at right from Matt Dempsey
The Winter of their Discontent: Keystone XL activists to protest global warming ahead of SOTU in freezing cold.
McKibben’s 350.org nutters say they will be protesting the KXL pipeline (but really global warming) today out by the capitol ahead of Obama’s SOTU speech. It will be interesting to see how many show up in the freezing cold. Anyone who has pics of these folks in cold weather gear protesting should provide links in comments.
A few reality points to consider:
· Keystone XL activists are outside fighting global warming on the coldest state of the union in history.
· Today’s forecast from the Capital Weather Gang: “Bitter cold today, slight snow chance tonight”: “Today will be another super-cold day (15-20 degrees below normal even before factoring in a brutal wind chill) as a frigid air mass continues its glide across the Midwest, South, and East.”
· Americans are not concerned about global warming: In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll 91 percent said creating jobs should be a top priority while only 27 percent said that addressing global warming should be a top priority. A Pew Research Center poll found that 29 percent want global warming to be a top priority. Ben Geman has the full story here.
· So it’s not surprising that they’ve had pretty sparse attendance – and ironically extremely cold temperatures – at their previous protests. For pictures and details of their poorly attended protests, click here.
· After the New York Mag and several news outlets called out activists for making a “huge environmental mistake” focusing all their efforts on Keystone XL, The New York Times published an article which twists the focus from defeat to arguing that the Keystone XL fight “lifts” the environmental movement: “Although some critics say the environmental movement has made a strategic error by focusing so much energy on the pipeline, no one disputes that the issue has helped a new breed of environmental organizations build a mostly young army eager to donate money and time.”
· Keystone XL activists began their protest at the Folger Shakespeare Library – coincidentally it’s opening night for Richard III. “Now is the winter of our discontent!”
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In many ways you have to admire their commitment.
Not their rationality, obviously, but they do have passion.
I hope that keeps them warm.
Keystone XL Pipeline protesters are actually saying to Canada – “Sell your oil to China.” I cannot see anything in doing that which meets their agenda. They do not appear to be capable of logical thought.
Is it time to rename the Gore Effect to Obama Effect?
Well, global warming is a top priority in Canada, you know eh? We want more global warming because never again do we want to experience another winter from hell like this current one of 2013-14.
The XL protestors are tools of super wealthy railroad owners. Pipelines are the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to transport liquids and gasses. Opposition to pipelines actually harms the environment. But as we see with windmills, environmentalists want monuments to their power, not a healthy environment.
Canadian oil will get to market. Mining it is safe. The CO2 released from using the oil as transportation fuel will not destroy the planet, the climate or the environment. Perhaps some of the protestors are actually sincere. Certainly those backing them are not.
Has anyone else other then me noticed that the photos illustrating Obama in MSM articles are becoming less flattering. So are the photos of his wife.
Keystone cops to police SOTU address.
stan stendera says: “Has anyone else other then me noticed that the photos illustrating Obama in MSM articles are becoming less flattering. So are the photos of his wife.!”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my [friend].
Sooooo, is the big fan in the picture to blow up the big plastic thing, or part of a large heater assembly? Frankly, either way, they should be banned from using electricity to prove their point!
That 29% could believe that “global warming” should be a top priority of government is scary.
Ian W said: “Keystone XL Pipeline protesters are actually saying to Canada – “Sell your oil to China.”
I keep waiting on the big announcement that Canada will partner with China and just bypass the US…the terrain is a formidable obstacle but given the quantity involved it could be a huge game changer for both countries…meanwhile, we can complain about no jobs, no industry and worry that the world might warm…
nutso fasst said: “That 29% could believe that “global warming” should be a top priority of government is scary.”
Yea, but we are 38th in science so its understandable…still scary but understandable…
Just change the name of the pipeline project to the Climate Change XL. Name changes seem to work well for the media manager specialists out there.
I saw 19 people in the photograph. I’ll be interested to see if there are more people in the actual protest. Don’t worry. It will make the news.
100,000s of people attended a pro-life March last week in Washington and I don’t doubt that none of you heard of that.
The pipeline is more or less approved in Canada. Certain Native groups are acting as fronts to the USA based “Tides Foundation” burning police cars assaulting people in either an anti pipeline or anti fracking protest. They are the same people who were involved in the 1% protests a year ago.
The natives think that they can parle the XL into more money so they don’t mind being the face of the protest in Canada.
check this out…
http://ezralevant.com/2014/01/first-nations-chief-received-5.html
Burning police cars….care of our [friendly] earth loving Natives.
M Courtney : “In many ways you have to admire their commitment.”
And therefore the extreme commitment of the Hitler Youth is also to be admired?
The road to hell is paved by those who exhibited strong commitment.
Strong commitment often means a closed mind and illogical thinking. As this example illustrates
Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Group is based in San Francisco.
Does anybody know if this group has links to Tides Foundation?
Who We Are
http://nextgenclimate.org/about/
Back in high school (early 80s) our course reading material leaned towards the apocalyptic: “The Fate of the Earth”, “Entropy”, etc. Reagan was portrayed as a cowboy, the USSR simply misunderstood, etc. You get the picture.
We had a debate, and I was “forced” to be on the “pro” side of the insanely stupid “we shouldn’t get rid of our nukes” argument. Another student and I were joined by our local MP (i.e., congressman) who was ancient, white and narrow-minded.
The other side was represented by two students and, well, a hippy. He spent the better part of prep time creating a large cardboard dot (representing all the nukes in the word), and pasting a quarter in the middle (representing the small amount that is actually needed to kill us all).
Two things I learned: the ancient, white and narrow-minded guy made sense, and wasn’t actually narrow-minded. And if you are going to use a prop in a debate, make sure it doesn’t fall over in the middle of your argument, so that a wise-ass (i.e., me) can’t say: “your argument has collapsed faster than your prop”, and get an ovation, winning the debate.
You can’t even parody that inane NYT article, as it was quite typical of leftist thinking. Their point was that “It’s not important to accomplish any actual environmental goals anymore, all we need to do is make our sympathizers feel good about themselves.”
In other words, the modern environmental movement has become little more than mood-boosting drug for the bored and easily led.
At least the president won’t be sweating. We could photoshop a blau ship behind the protesters.
In their petroleum based foul weather gear no doubt transported to the “event” (probably?) in petroleum using vehicles and staying in locations heated by petroleum products. Can you DOOFI? (plural for doofus?)
” Americans are not concerned about global warming: In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll 91 percent said creating jobs should be a top priority while only 27 percent said that addressing global warming should be a top priority.”
If I may introduce the Pearse Paradox:
If there ever was a mathematical formula for how far destructive, soci_alist movements and causes can go, it is contained in the above quote. These zealous,anti-civilization, anti-productive sector movements only fluorish when the economy is flush because they need a lot of cash. And where does a lot of cash come from, even for governments to throw out by the shovelful. Bonus marks for the answer. It is an inescapable parasitic relationship. But it is a forgone conclusion that any level of success begins to kill off their life-giving host. Impoverishing the host results in losing its cash and numbers support.
This relationship is rock solid and is the E=mc^2 of why all such movements have to fail, or at least reinvent themselves in preparation for better times. The Soviet Union the most successful of this ideology lasted 70 years, only because it held the reins of state and commanded huge bureaucracies, armies, secret police and the like. Yet, ultimately the command economy had to collapse. Never-say-diers now point to the wonder that is China, not realizing this is an evolution into private enterprise. It too will be gone as the productive sector grows under individualists. Seeing the Soviet Union collapse immediately put the Chinese leadership into this position. Western industrial investment in China was a Trojan Horse, still to work its final magic.
I believe we could plot curves, develop ratios and indices that would allow us to forecast the demise of a given movement. We are gathering data even now for developing skill in predicting this. Is there an unemployment rate, a level of declining government revenues, and perhaps other developments that form the “tipping point”. I subconsciously made such a forecast when I advised a young geology grad not to go into the environmental side of earth science, that it was full and good for only one generation – he would soon be out of a job.
All them protesters look pretty warm in their winter clothing made from hydrocarbons. All them knapsacks made from Nylon, which comes from Benzene. Then there’s the fake pipeline on the ground made from hydrocarbons.
“In many ways you have to admire their commitment.
Not their rationality, obviously, but they do have passion.”
So, I can’t help thinking, do terrorists. I’m reminded of Yeat’s brilliant poem, “The Second Coming”
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”
Hmmmm … sometimes life imitates art. They’re “Saving Gaia.” >snark<
What is that tarp doing on that brick sidewalk in the photo? It’s definitely been there for a while. Notice how the bricks are lightly snow covered either side of the tarp but underneath, where the tarp had been, they’re bone dry. Was that tarp put there so that our precious, humble, altruistic, meagerly compensated, and so very public serving legislators (or Policymakers if you will) don’t so much as have to dip their dainty pinkies into one solitary flake of snow on the way to any legislative session, or perhaps the POTUS’s [pen, pencil (and IRS audit)] SOTU address?
Just askin’