This Is What Engaged Citizenship Looks Like

On Friday, fifty-four members of the global climate movement were arrested in Washington, DC after blockading the offices of an environmental engineering firm responsible for contributing to what protesters see as a deeply flawed impact statement on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial tar sands project that has become a focus of the climate change debate in the US.

Demanding that the State Department’s final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) of Keystone XL be fair, balanced, and free from the influence of the fossil fuel industry, the activists surrounded the offices, locked arms, and refused to leave until they were arrested by local police.



You can read the full story here.

H/t trapdinawrpool

A Bit More About Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver

Late yesterday afternoon, I wrote a post on one of our more shameful politicians, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and the embarrassment we all should feel over his performance in Washington in a speech to a carefully-screened audience pushing the XL Keystone pipeline. In it, he rebuked and ridiculed leading climate-change scientist James Hansen for his warnings about the Alberta tarsands.

In a comment on yesterday's post, which you can read in by clicking the above link, The Salamander offered his usual penetrating analysis, this time assessing the Natural Resources Minister and providing a link to Franke James' site. An environmental activist, writer, and game designer, James provides a transcript of a meeting she had with Oliver on March 3/12 at his riding office in Toronto.

I hope you will take some time to peruse the transcript, as it offers even more insight into the man who, in my view, has a decidedly twisted view of what his role as Natural Resources Minister is.

Oh, Joe Oliver, Have You No Shame? UPDATED

In denouncing a leading climate change scientist, the coward, Resources Minister Joe Oliver, showed his complete lack of character, insisting that his message be delivered to a carefully screened audience to avoid any embarrassment from those who favour truth over propaganda.

As Canadians, we should all feel ashamed by the way we are being misrepresented in other countries by this man and his government.

UPDATED: Perhaps you will agree that this interview with Oliver by Evan Solomon can only compound our collective embarrassment over his lies/ineptitude: