I superglued my hands to a friend to stop the Keystone Pipeline. Our action along with the work of indigenous people in Canada, farmers in Nebraska and other resistors along the route and across the country forced Obama to stop the project. 

Grassroots resistance dragged a once assured victory for Transcanada into the mud of the regulatory process. Obama finally sealed the biggest victory for national climate movement three weekends ago rejecting the project, announcing that the Keystone pipeline would “…not make a meaningful contribution to our economy.”

At least for a moment last weekend, I danced a happy jig, celebrating a small undoing of the destructive fossil fuel industry.

An added benefit, is that the victory’s momentum is already pumping into an extreme energy fight closer to UFE’s Boston Offices. About 9 miles away in West Roxbury, resistance has sprung up against the Spectra pipeline. Similar to Keystone, this pipeline was a “done deal,” after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (also known as “FERC”) gave it the greenlight back in March.

The Spectra pipeline is part of the gas industry’s aggressive attempts to transport more of it’s dirty energy. The West Roxbury pipeline would bring gas from the polluted, frackking fields of Pennsylvania to the Northeast for export.

Over the past two weeks, the 40 protestors who were arrested for occupying the construction site didn’t seem ruffled by FERC’s approval and a recent court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the city of Boston.  Consisting of mothers & their children, Quakers, UU ministers and UFE founder Chuck Collins, a variety of local residents and organizations including Stop the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline, Resist the Pipeline and 350 Massachusetts have banded together against Spectra Energy.

The pipeline fighters are keeping us to the scientific timeline for building a better economy – one that will avert ecological collapse and build fair jobs.  As Louisiana governor and presidential candidate Bobby Jindal put it best in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, “For some on the left, climate change is simply a Trojan horse. It’s a way for them to come in and make changes to our economy that they would otherwise want to make.” I agree. Here’s to Trojan horses, super glue and things that stop pipelines from infecting our economy.