The Pipeline to Oblivion

On Sunday, reports Think Progress,"more than 12,000 people from across the United States and Canada gathered at the White House to call on President Obama to stop the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. After a rally in Lafayette Square addressed by elected officials, youth climate activists, environmental leaders, climate scientist James Hansen, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, Naomi Klein, and local opponents of the pipeline from South Dakota, Texas, and Nebraska, the boisterous crowd formed a human chain that completely encircled the White House."

Meanwhile, Politico suggests that many expect President Obama won't make the final decision on the pipeline until after the election, probably citing environmental concerns that must first be addressed.

Still Crazy: Dick Gregory at the Sunday demo

There are other environmental issues involved--and that's the problem, there always are--but a major one is the accelerating effect on the Climate Crisis.  Well-funded denialism is one big problem to confronting this.  Ordinary, natural, 'I-don't-want-to-contemplate-the-end of life as we know it so let's obsess on Kardashians' denial is another.  A third is crappy communication--dumb media, environmentalists and scientists who can't say anything clearly or in a compelling way.  Perhaps a combination of all of them explains why manifestations of the Climate Crisis right now either don't get attention in the media at all or for very long, as well as not being reported as manifestations of the Climate Crisis.

 This becomes really obvious when such manifestations happen far, far away, or to mostly poor people of another race.  Places like Thailand, where more than 500 people have died in flooding that has resulted from unusually heavy and persistent rains.