New Zealand Celsias

Actress Daryl Hannah has been arrested in front of the White House along with other environmental protesters who oppose a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The sit-in Tuesday involved dozens protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. It would go through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas.

 Hannah  was very calm and says they hope President Barack Obama will not bow to oil lobbyists.

Hannah sat down on the sidewalk near the White House and refused orders from U.S. Park Police to move.But there was a very serious reason for the protest that has been overlooked in most of the media here. Keystone XL is a new 1700 mile long pipeline that will vastly increase the flow of the environmentally devastating tar sands from Alberta Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The aim of the protest is to make this into a national issue.Previously there had been many protests but it was mainly from those who were on its path.Tar sands mining has wrecked massive areas of land in Alberta and its route endangers farms, wild areas, aquifers and waterways on its proposed route.

Obama needs to sign the go ahead for this. Not Congress. Just the President.And that's part of the rationale for the protest.

Bill McKibben , from 350.org is among the many who have been arrested in this very peaceful protest and James Hansen is on his way.Bill McKibben tells the reasons for the protest well in this own words...

" People are coming to understand -- as we hoped our demonstrations would highlight -- that it poses a danger to the whole planet as well. After all, it’s the Earth’s second largest pool of carbon, and hence the second-largest potential source of global warming gases after the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. We’ve already plumbed those Saudi deserts. Now the question is: Will we do the same to the boreal forests of Canada. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has made all too clear, if we do so it’s “essentially game over for the climate.” That message is getting through.
Second, being arrested in front of the White House helped make it clearer that President Obama should be the focus of anti-pipeline activism. For once Congress isn’t in the picture. The situation couldn’t be simpler: the president, and the president alone, has the power either to sign the permit that would take the pipeline through the Midwest and down to Texas (with the usual set of disastrous oil spills to come) or block it.
Barack Obama has the power to stop it and no one in Congress or elsewhere can prevent him from doing so. That means -- and again, it couldn’t be simpler -- that the Keystone XL decision is the biggest environmental test for him between now and the next election. If he decides to stand up to the power of big oil, it will send a jolt through his political base, reminding the presently discouraged exactly why they were so enthused in 2008.
That’s why many of us were wearing our old campaign buttons when we went into the paddy wagon. We’d like to remember -- and like the White House to remember, too -- just why we knocked on all those doors."