XL Dissent is an event for young people to raise our voices in solidarity with communities most impacted by extreme energy. These include Indigenous First Nations in Alberta resisting tar sands extraction, people along the pipeline route opposing TransCanada’s use of eminent domain, and those near major refineries in Texas fighting environmental racism. Approval of the pipeline would ensure that our generation will also experience environmental devastation. We are coming together to register our dissent.
What’s the plan?
Join us in Washington DC March 1-2 to tell President Obama to reject the northern leg of Keystone XL and protect us from a future defined by climate chaos.
The plan is to bring together a powerful student-led escalated action in Washington DC to stop Keystone XL on March 2nd, 2014.
To participate in the action you will need to plan to be in DC for at least two days — with the unlikely possibility of a third.
First, all participants will be required to join a nonviolent direct action training, which will be held from 5-9 PM on Saturday 3/1. Dinner will be provided, and it will be at Thurgood Marshall Center, 1816 12th Street NW. At the training we will discuss the plan for the action, practice key elements of the event, and go through all the legal and logistical issues involved with the action. Everyone who wishes to participate in civil disobedience on the 2nd must attend the training on the 1st.
Then, at 10AM on Sunday March 2nd we will meet at Georgetown University where President Obama delivered his climate speech. We will gather, share directions and intentions, then march down Pennsylvania Ave. to the White House. Along the way we will occupy intersections with symbolic oil spills, and bring a little bit of Keystone XL home to its backers in DC. When we get to the White House we will gather again to hear from people who are on the front lines of this fight, and prepare for civil disobedience.
Then we will march to the fence of the White House and commit an act of peaceful civil disobedience — bringing a human oil spill to President Obama’s front door.