Environmentalist author will discuss pipeline plan
Bill McKibben
Author Bill McKibben calls himself an unlikely activist.
McKibben, 53, of Vermont, would rather stay home and watch bees make honey than burn up jet fuel traveling around the world to build a climate movement. Yet the founder of 350.org made history as an activist and is still an activist because he believes time is running out.
His main impetus: the proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would transport tar sands oil from Canada through six states to the Gulf of Mexico.
McKibben is giving a free talk, "Update from the Front Lines of the Climate Fight," and book-signing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Auditorium from 6 to 7:30 p.m. April 24.
Keystone, he says, is the defining environmental battle of his generation.
"It’s been the occasion for more civil disobedience and arrests than any issue of any kind in the last 30 years," he said via email, "and it has united a big green movement from the grassroots up."
In his latest book, "Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist" (Times Books, $26), McKibben shares how he helped lead an act of civil disobedience in front of the White House in the summer of 2011, landing 1,253 people in jail. (The author will sign copies of his book after his talk.)
Environmentalists opposing the Keystone pipeline have called it "game over" in the ongoing battle against climate change because of the huge amounts of carbon in tar sands. Supporters champion the pipeline as a source of job creation and energy security for Americans.
President Barack Obama holds the power to stop the pipeline. News reports say he’s expected to make a decision sometime in the next few months.
McKibben continues to travel across the U.S. talking about climate change.
"This is what organizing is," he says in his book. "You talk to people and try to get them engaged. You tell them about what people are doing elsewhere, so they can glimpse what they could do. It is — wait for it — a kind of pollination."
His grass-roots climate movement, 350.org, helps bring people together for rallies like the one scheduled for Washington, D.C., on April 26 to tell Obama to reject the pipeline.
In the book, McKibben moves deftly between details of the political power play over climate change in the nation’s capital and the story of beekeeper Kirk Webster, who produces chemical-free honey in Vermont.
He draws connections between the hives and democracy, between the bees and threat of a changing landscape.
While the global battle over the prevalence of fossil fuels goes on, McKibben depicts an ideal way of life in tune with the rhythms of nature, as exemplified by the farm.
He advocates that we go back to supporting small-scale farmers like Webster who are part of the community. This is just as important in Hawaii as it is in Vermont.
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Nina Wu writes about environmental issues. Reach her at nwu@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter @ecotraveler.
