Energy

Environmentalist Calls Rejected Dakota Pipeline ‘A Psychic Relief’ For Activists

REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

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Chris White Tech Reporter
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A notorious left-wing activist and author believes the Dakota Access Pipeline’s temporary defeat was both a relief and a sign that the anti-fossil fuel message is resonating.

Naomi Klein, a self-avowed anti-capitalist and environmentalist, said Monday that the fight against the multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline will likely carry on into next year, since President-elect Donald Trump will almost certainly work to overturn the rejection.

“Still, there is more physical and psychic relief in this room than I have witnessed in my life,” Klein wrote in an op-ed at The Nation. She was referring to the reaction of DAPL opponents to the Army Corps of Engineers decision to rescind approval of the nearly 1,200-mile-long pipeline.

The fight against the pipeline is not over, Klein warned, because “The company will challenge the decision,” and, “Trump will try to reverse it.”

Environmentalists and members of Standing Rock Sioux, the American Indian group opposing the project, hailed the decision a victory, while Energy Transfer Partners and pipeline supporters blasted the move.

It’s a stunning reversal from July, 2016, when the Corps approved the easement for the project.

Army Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said Sunday the Corps would not approve the easement based on the need to “explore alternate routes.”

Klein’s stance against the pipeline and support for Standing Rock is likely informed by her belief that the use of fossil fuel is built upon racist institutions.

She once suggested that politicians don’t discuss global warming because they are part of racist and bigoted governmental institutions that allow the fossil fuel industry to exploit black and Latino people.

For the past 30 years, Klein wrote in June, governments have refused to lower greenhouse gas emissions despite knowing the dangers. The reason why they ignore possible calamity, writes the author of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate,” is because of institutional racism.

The “dirty” and “toxic” nature of coal and other fossil fuels, she adds, “require sacrificial people and places: people whose lungs and bodies can be sacrificed to work in the coalmines, people whose lands and water can be sacrificed to open-pit mining and oil spills.”

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