On Saturday, Pensacola will be one of over 220 locations in the U.S. and Canada holding gatherings as part of 350.org’s “Draw the Line on Keystone XL” event.
The environmental group is calling Saturday a “National Day of Action,” one in which 350 Pensacola, the local chapter of 350.org, will lead here at Plaza de Luna at 2pm. Concerned citizens are invited to attend to demonstrate solidarity against permitting of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which as proposed will extend from Alberta, Canada to Houston, Texas and will transport Canadian tar sands crude to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.
“Draw the Line” is one in a series of events led by 350.org in 2013. In February, the group’s “Forward On Climate” rally held in Washington, D.C. became the largest rally on climate change in U.S. history, with a crowd of over 40,000 people. Local citizens and representatives from 350 Pensacola traveled to D.C. to attend the historic rally.
Saturday’s action will be held only a few days after the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Department of State receiving the project’s application for a cross-border permit. The Keystone XL project has met with opposition from environmentalists, residents of refinery towns, and Native American groups and rural landowners whose property the pipeline would cross.
Press Release:
What: Pensacola Draws the Line on Keystone XL and Rising Seas
Where: Plaza de Luna, 900 S. Palafox St., Pensacola, FL 32502
When: Saturday, September 21, 2-3 p.m.
People from coast to coast are ready to draw the line on September 21 for this national call to action. People will rally on Saturday, September 21, to demand that President Obama deny the permit for Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in the most widespread day of action to date in the campaign to stop the disastrous project.
In Pensacola, citizens will draw the line at Plaza de Luna to demonstrate solidarity with others in the fight to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, to move beyond fossil fuels, and to express their hopes and ideas for a better future.
Led by 350 Pensacola, the group will rally around solutions to sea level rise, heat waves, wild fires, extreme storms, the loss of Arctic ice, ocean acidification and other impacts of climate change.
In solidarity with other frontline communities in the South, the local Draw the Line will interconnect a line along the Gulf Coast and up the Atlantic seaboard, from the Rio Grande to Houston, through New Orleans, Biloxi, Pascagoula, Mobile and Gulf Shores, to the Florida Panhandle, on to St. Petersburg, Miami, Jacksonville, and beyond.
Draw the Line in Pensacola is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 850-572-7230 or email 350pensacola@gmail.com.