Greeny News

Activists say that the two-week protest is the largest civil disobedience in a green generation

A protest against the White House against a pipeline from the Alberta oil sands as the largest green campaign of civil disobedience in a generation that said the organizers.

About 1,500 people have signed up to court arrest during the two week campaign outside the White House, which begins on Saturday morning.

The campaign is to convince as a last chance, Barack Obama, a planned 1,600-mile-pipeline, the oil from the oil sands of Alberta will be seen across America gather rich farmland to the Gulf of Mexico to stop.

The State Department is expect to produce its final environmental analysis of the pipeline by the end of the month. Obama will then have 90 days to decide whether going ahead with the project would be in the national interest.

The Keystone XL project has a focus of environmental protests. Greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands are 40% higher than for conventional oil and mining has Alberta 's destroyed boreal forests.

Recent pipeline accidents in Michigan and Montana have also deepened fears about possible dangers along the pipeline 's route through prime U.S. farmland.

The veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben, who is leading the protest, describes it as the biggest civil disobedience action in environmental circles for years.

It also puts Obama on the spot to make good on his promise as a presidential candidate in 2008 to act on climate change.

Congress is not the main point of Obama 's green agenda to act - and has pressure of Tea Party activists forced the Environmental Protection Agency to delay or weaken the rules for dealing with climate change - climate change legislation.

But this time Obama has freedom of action - or at least that's McKibben 's hope.

Obama must personally sign out on the pipeline, if it going forward. "We think we can have a chance because for once Obama gets the call to make himself, he has to sign or not sign -. - approve," said McKibben.

The protest will begin at about 11 clock on Saturday morning, when a first group of 100 activists at the gates of the White House, an area that should be kept free to gather and wait to be arrested.

Unlike other campaigns, "s actions have geographical reach - with protesters descending on Washington from areas along the pipeline 's the next two weeks \ route.

A group of East Texas, has hired an RV to make the trip.

The campaign against the pipeline has been steadily gaining momentum amid concerns pipeline safety.

The pipeline route crosses fertile farmland and important aquifers.