I've spent years of my life organising against #KeystoneXL
Helping get Occupy Houston to oppose it, joining Tar Sands Blockade, co-founding Houston NOKXL, fundraising, lobbying, speaking, flyering, getting brutalised while taking direct action against it, networking, connecting with other people across the #GulfSouth who were also dedicated to opposing it & the other terrible, inhumane, & racist policies & culture that let these projects happen. During all of this, people who loved me, activists I'd grown up around, fellow #UUs, & politicos of all stripes told me that my quest was impractical, quixotic, a distraction- that too much money was behind this project, that the #oilandgas fix was in.
We didn't manage to stop TransCanada Corporation from building the southern leg of their vile pipeline. #KXL brings #tarsands to #PortArthur & #Houston Texas. Even many of my comrades despaired, and believe me, I felt it as well.
But I had hope, because I knew that we had lost well- we'd cost them far more time & money than they'd ever expected to spend- especially in Texas. I also had faith in groups like NacSTOP - Nacogdoches County Stop Tar sands Oil. Permanently. and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Service and everyone on the frontlines who can't quit when they don't win because this is their lives.
Today, some of that hope & faith was validated. The northern leg of #KXL is dead, Albertan tar sands extraction is being strangled by lack of cheap export avenues, & people across the continent have proven that sustained organising and #directaction change the entire landscape of what is politically possible.
As a native, multiple generation #Houstonian, I can think of few lessons more needed than the demonstration that the #fossilfuel industry can lose.
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