UPDATE: Bill McKibben doesn’t seem to want to address the question. See below.
Earlier today, 350.org’s founder Bill McKibben tweeted this:
[Source: http://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/442052998324551680 ]
Tom Nelson asked about those boxes and the environmental impact to which I replied:
[Source: http://twitter.com/wattsupwiththat/status/442055366595977216 ]
And sure enough, here’s a picture of those boxes full of comments delivered today by Bill’s claimed “100 people” from NRDC, 350.org, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth. League of Conservation voters, and many other environmental organizations:
![Comment%20boxes%20from%20KXL%20NID%20Delivery%20Credit%20Rocky%20Kistner%20NRDC-thumb-500x375-14923[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/comment20boxes20from20kxl20nid20delivery20credit20rocky20kistner20nrdc-thumb-500x375-149231.jpg?quality=83)
Source, NRDC news website. Credit Rocky Kistner NRDC Note some boxes don’t have labels. more on that below.
I made up a humorous comparison photo that speaks to the photo op issue:
But having finished that, I decided to look around a bit more for news, to see if there was a complete list of organizations involved and maybe an actual number of petitions. I found this video shot today of the march to deliver these described by Bill McKibben.
With 18 minutes to go, over 2 million anti-kxl comments into State Dept. Took 100 people to carry the boxes over. Amazing work by all!
(BTW: Note the banner says 1.5 million, in the news article, they say that another half million comments were added at the last minute, and the banner had already been printed)
And watching that video, I noticed something very odd at the 27 second mark, note the arrows:
Either those gnarly looking protestors are endowed with near superhuman wrist strength, or those boxes are empty.
It makes me wonder how many petitions they really delivered, and how many boxes were empty, but brought along just for the photo op.
Who knows with these clowns? So much for Bill’s required 100 people.
==============================================================
UPDATE: 3/8 10AM PST
No response from Bill since this post went up last night.
@billmckibben Hey Bill any comment on those "2million" KXL comments delivered in empty boxes? http://t.co/wnz0PlgKjQ
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) March 8, 2014
Readers that have Twitter accounts might want to ask him as well.
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“Friday Funny – Great moments in Environmentalism: the ’2 million’ KXL comments – real or fake?”
I suppose it’s the fake that is real…
So everyone is giggling about the empty boxes. But KXL is serious. While the oil comes by train, people are dying. Trains carrying oil just doesn’t make sense. Dozen died in Canada, needless horrible deaths. Who benefits? Only one – Obama donor and oligarch Buffett, who runs the trains and Big Wind.
If this was happening in Russia it would be front page news.
Why don’t all those people just stop using oil and anything made from oil?
Eve, where do you think on your MacBook or iPhone comes from?
Oil and its byproducts are vital on a scale most enviro-loonies don’t even remotely understand.
Jesus, I spell like butt today.
“Where do you think the plastic on your”…. PLASTIC. Damn it.
I don’t use oil, my computer is made from 100% naturally harvested hippie tears, & the electricity is generated from the soundwaves created by crappy protest songs.
MattS says:
March 8, 2014 at 8:58 pm
A little math. The photo of the stack of boxes shows 24 boxes. A thumb drive is pretty light and would be a negligible addition to the weight of the box. 2M comments / 24 boxes = one thumb drive with ~83,000 comments per box.
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Soooo …………… those who would force us to live “sustainably” just wasted 24 boxes to do what a large pocket would do?
I should follow their lead?
Yea, right!
“Andrew says:
March 9, 2014 at 5:55 am
So everyone is giggling about the empty boxes. But KXL is serious. While the oil comes by train, people are dying. Trains carrying oil just doesn’t make sense. Dozen died in Canada, needless horrible deaths. Who benefits? Only one – Obama donor and oligarch Buffett, who runs the trains and Big Wind.”
Buffett has publicly expressed support for keystone.
“Rail has emerged as an alternative to pipelines, offering a faster means of shipping crude–though perhaps more risky, as a recent spate of oil car accidents has shown.
Despite his stake in the railroad business, Buffett still expressed support for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline.
“I think probably the Keystone Pipeline is a good idea from the country,” he posited. As to if and when it would be completed, his answer was less definitive: “I have no idea.””
http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/03/03/warren-buffett-is-still-bullish-on-rail-and-keystone/
You’d think by now they’d be able to do a simple public protest without looking like fools.
I was going to say the boxes were props even before I scrolled down and saw people carrying
them with one hand! I was thinking that’s a whole lot of boxes for 2 million tweets.