Protesters converged on Washington D.C. February 17^th. Tens of thousands of people gathered together to protest the Keystone pipeline which is intended to run across the Midwest. There were about 40 thousand people who came together from 30 states to attend the protest. The protest was the largest climate change protest ever held in the United States. The protesters want President Obama to honor his pledges against climate change which he addressed in his inaugural speech. The pipe line is expected to cost approximately $5.3 billion.

People who support the pipeline have expressed that the pipeline will create thousands of new jobs and will stop Americas dependency on South American oil. The people who are against the pipeline have environmental concerns and the fact that we need to stop using fossil fuels in order to combat global warming.

Bush ok'd the first phase of the project and we see oil being shipped from Alberta Canada to Illinois and Oklahoma. The second phase of the pipe line that would be from Alberta Canada to Texas has been put on hold since the BP oil spill. A new wave of concerns developed because of the oil spill and the result of damage to ecological sensitive areas in Nebraska. In order to keep the pipelines going, an alternate route for the pipeline has been designed and with the new route away from sensitive areas the possibility for the go ahead for the project is highly possible.

We really do not need this pipeline for oil. The oil being sent through these lines will be exported elsewhere in the world and the American people will not have the benefit of the extra oil being processed to reduce the price that they are paying for gas now.

We need to demand that the development of alternative sources to replace fossil fuels needs to be met and dealt with aggressively. There is no doubt that we are in trouble with the climate change that is happening. We need to stop waiting for the last minute before we tackle global warming; we need to act before climate change is irreversible in many places throughout the world. We have witnessed the horrific changes that are taking place throughout the rainforests, the Polar Regions and right here at home.

As long as we allow the oil companies to run our environmental policies, global warming/climate change will continue to happen and will increase at an alarming rate. Oil companies are the ones that are stopping the research of alternative fuels and will continue to do so until they have sucked out the last drop of oil that the earth has and will be the cause of the demise of many regions and many species. All for the almighty dollar.