The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, carrying a sludgy-like oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada across the United States, to refining and export facilities along the Gulf Coast, would result in releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to irrevocably change the earth’s climate, destroying species, causing vast migrations of people from new deserts, lost shorelines, water-covered island nations, a hard and bitter world for those who feast and those who suffer famine. That is why 50,000 people were in Washington last Sunday, to implore President Obama not to sign off on the project, particularly since he made Climate Change such an important part of both his Inaugural Address and the State of the Union speech.

Lifelong Westchester resident Surya made the trip with two busloads organized by Wespac, a 35-year-old peace and justice organization in Westchester County. “I went because I feel that more natural things should be used not only to create energy, but also in the food we eat. This use of carbon fuels and genetically modified organisms is nothing but capitalists’ intent on making money and endangering the planet.”

There were African-American speakers, Van Jones and Rev. Yearwood, but we weren’t represented the way we should be. I felt like the fly in a bowl of buttermilk, but that’s because we’re still dealing with the same problems our ancestors had; this whole racial misunderstanding that’s happening. There were some young black folks there. Some middle-aged, but basically we don’t have time to deal with fracking and the pipeline because we’re fighting the issues that have been affecting us all our lives.

Speaking of the Keystone Pipeline, we see it, and the move to allow hydro-fracking for natural gas in New York State, as purely “capitalistic ventures” that negatively impacts the health and environment for future generations. And while there may be detachment from the issue of the pipeline, hydrofracking, the process of injecting millions of gallons of toxic water into the Marcellus Shale area of upstate New York to fracture it and release natural gas, is as close as the kitchen faucet and as imminent as this coming spring.