Naomi Klein Arrested in Oil Sands Protest

By Mitch Potter, The Toronto Star

03 September 11

ore than 1,000 people have been busted at the gates of the White House the past two weeks, as the most ambitious of climate protests against Canadian oil comes to a head.

Toronto author and activist Naomi Klein was not planning to be among them. Support the cause? Sure. Speak to the anti-tarsands faithful? Absolutely. But to actually get arrested?

No, Klein and the other Canadian protesters in Washington agreed - that is a stand best left to their U.S. counterparts, who need not worry whether such close encounters with law enforcement will hamper their ability to cross borders in the future.

Yet there was Klein on Friday, being led away by police in the latest harvest of detainees after a last-second decision to put her liberty on the line in opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Two weeks ago, when the rolling protests began, the detentions lasted two full days. But the sheer volume of arrests - Klein was among 166 taken away Friday - has forced DC authorities to accelerate processing. Barely two hours after she was taken away, Klein was let go. Like everyone else, she was cited for "failure to obey."

"I wasn't planning to get arrested," Klein told the Star minutes after she was sprung.

"It was a last-minute decision. I was sitting there with several indigenous leaders from Canada. And when it became clear they intended to stay where they were and expose themselves to arrest, well ..." She did the same.

For Klein, it was a first-ever arrest. "I write. And I'm an activist. But I'm not a chanter, not a marcher. I've never been arrested before.

"But that's what's been happened for two weeks. Climate scientists, landowners, a wide range of people who all feel this same sense of urgency. The feeling is that we can't just talk about the stakes on Twitter and leave it at that. If we mean what we say then we have to act like it."

Klein is unsure yet whether the bust will come back haunt her in future cross-border travels. For now, her speedy release means she will be free to fulfill plans to address Saturday's campaign-ending protest in Lafayette Park opposite the White House.

The overarching question in DC, however, is whether the cause is already lost.

Though no final decision on the $7 billion TransCanada pipeline is expected for 90 days, all the body language emanating from the Obama administration suggests minds are made up and the project to nearly double the American intact of carbon-intensive Alberta bitumen is a go.

Last week the US State Department gave the strongest endorsement yet of the plan to build the metre-wide steel straw from Alberta to Texas in its final environmental assessment.

US Energy Secretary Steve Chu, in a subsequent interview, framed the issue as "not perfect, but it's a trade-off.

"It's certainly true that having Canada as a supplier for our oil is much more comforting than to have other countries supply our oil," Chu said.

And Friday, Team Obama was hastily retreating on another key environmental policy, instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to delay plans to tighten ozone standards. The Sierra Club, among others, denounced the decision as a gift to "coal and oil polluters."

Many longtime interpreters of Washington's political tea leaves suggest the final political considerations for Keystone XL come down to jobs. A $7 billion, shovel-ready project here and now, for a President whose future likely depends on how Americans are working in November, 2012, when Obama comes up for re-election.

The political risks for Obama are vast, insofar as many of those arrested these past two weeks are among his truest believers - the young, grassroots activists who help lift him to power in 2008, fully expecting an administration that would follow through on its promise to wean the country off fossil fuels.

One of them, Courtney Hight, acknowledged her discomfort in an interview with the Star. The Floridian activist was "one of the first boots on the ground for Obama," dedicated three years of her life as his campaign's Youth Vote Director. She went on to join the White House Council on Environmental Quality before shifting back to activism as co-director of the Energy Action Coalition.

She was arrested Thursday, outside the front door of the President she thought agreed with her.

"It feels inherently weird and uncomfortable for me to do something remotely critical of this president," Hight told the Star after her release.

"But I feel ownership over his current position. I am disappointed he is not being stronger, although it is understandable given the continuing attacks he is facing," said Hight.

"We need old Barack Obama to rise above the politics and just barrel through. And so getting arrested, if that is what it takes, is meant to remind him of the things he once believed - things I think he still believes - that inspired millions of young people to support him."

None are ready to concede defeat on Keystone XL. As Klein says, if the pro-tarsands lobby was "100 per cent convinced the deal is done they would not be blanketing the US TV networks with ads trying to sell this thing to the public."

But Klein observed that if Obama ultimately approves Keystone XL, part of the fallout will be to free the broader climate movement from the illusion that "there is a saviour in the White House who just needs to be awakened to come to the rescue."

The protests against Keystone XL, says Klein, are simply one facet of a broader, multi-pronged campaign targeting the industry through multiple pressure points, from consumer campaigns to boycotts to agitating individual corporations to commit to avoiding tarsands oil.

"Powerful movements are built on strategy, not saviours. So if it turns out that Obama approves this pipeline, the movement is not going to crawl away, it's going to change strategy," she said.

"It will be healthy for people to know there isn't a saviour in the White House. We have to build the movement we want. And the strategy can't be trying wake up one person."