After nearly nine months on the road, I arrived home last night with the clear sense that the work of the Great March for Climate Action isn't even close to done. Despite the beginnings of a shift in public opinion on the urgency of the climate crisis, the fossil fuel industry continues to push for further expansion of an insfrastructure that will condemn us to an unsustainable rise in Earth's temperature. Today, those forces are at work in the US Senate, pushing to authorize construction of the Keystone Pipeline. The vote is said to be extremely close, so please take a couple minutes right now to call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote "No."

Even as the fossil-fuel industry pushes to expand, the passion, energy and collective wisdom of climate activists across the country grows and matures. When Climate Marchers started out from the Port of Los Angeles on March 1st, some of us called ourselves Climate Patriots. As we wrapped up our transcontinental trek on November 1st, we felt we had become Climate Warriors, with ample wounds and weariness to justify the title.

For me, though I have a long history as a peace activist, the warrior metaphor makes sense, as we are fighting for our very survival. It makes sense, too, to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, who called the vote in favor of Keystone in the U.S. House last Friday an act of war, saying “We are outraged at the lack of intergovernmental cooperation. We are a sovereign nation, and we are not being treated as such. We will close our reservation borders to Keystone XL. Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people.” Read the full article here.