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 But last Friday's presidential “no” to the 1,200-mile (1931 km)
pipeline out of Alberta's oil sands may signal more than just a
single, if remarkable, win for environmentalists. It stands to
sharpen the fissure in the green movement between those who believe
direct action can jar the world off its fossil fuel habit, and
others who say only a collaborative approach that engages
governments and corporations can deliver the large-scale solutions
required to keep global temperatures in check.
For now, defeating Keystone has given oxygen to green groups that
focus on keeping the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground before they
even are burned.
Belief that the world must refrain from extracting vast amounts of
its known oil, coal and gas reserves has been gaining scientific and
political traction among those who argue the humanity cannot risk
allowing global temperatures to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius
over pre-industrial levels.
For many environmentalists, that urgency means less focus on lengthy
international negotiations, such the Paris summit this December that
seeks a consensus among world leaders on how to cut carbon
emissions.
 Instead, they favor demonstrations and legal actions that target not
just energy projects like the oil sands, but the supporting
infrastructure of railways, ports and pipelines that brings the most
carbon intensive energy to market.
That spirit - dubbed “blockadia” by author Naomi Klein - has seen
citizen activists delay coal exports to Asia at U.S. West Coast
terminals, win a moratorium against oil and gas fracking in New York
state, and led to "kayaktivists" swarming oil rigs leaving Seattle’s
port as part of Royal Dutch Shell’s <RDSa.L> exploratory drilling in
the Arctic this summer.
Keystone's defenders argue that its opponents scored a hollow
victory, insisting the crude will still reach U.S. refiners by rail.
But it is uncertain whether railroads can meet the demand at a
competitive cost. Last month, Shell canceled its $2 billion, 80,000
barrel a day Carmon Creek project in the oil sands, citing a lack of
transport infrastructure.
And activists have vowed to ramp up efforts to block crude oil
moving by train as well.
THEATRICS
To critics, stopping a single project like Keystone puts feel-good
theatrics ahead of real gains in cutting carbon emissions.
“It’s all the stuff people love to do,” says Michael Shellenberger,
executive director of the Breakthrough Institute that contends only
technological change, such as increased capacity of natural gas
fracking and nuclear power, has the potential to displace oil and
coal.
“The media publicity, the fund-raising, the mass membership
mobilization are all incentives to do more of these acts.” he says.
“But underneath all that symbolism, only technology has the answers
to a problem of this scale, and for that we need to get governments
to act.”
 Shellenberger and others credit low global crude prices and a world
awash in oil and gas for creating conditions that allowed Obama to
turn down Keystone without suffering the political pain that might
accompany higher gas prices. "The president understands energy isn't an issue when prices are
low," says Kevin Book, an energy policy analyst at ClearView Energy
Partners in Washington.
Activists counter that years spent lobbying Washington and other
capitals have produced meager results, allowing global carbon
emissions to continue to rise. They were stung by the failure to get
a strong treaty out of the 2009 global climate talks in Copenhagen,
and by the collapse of U.S. cap and trade legislation the following
year that would have regulated industrial carbon emissions.
"With all the lobbyists on earth, environmentalists couldn't get cap
and trade done," says Bill McKibben, a journalist-turned-climate
activist who built his 350.org movement through the spread of his
writings on digital media.
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"That's what's changed: there is now a big, big movement that was
not there five years ago," he says. McKibben was among the hundreds
of demonstrators arrested in 2011 in front of the White House.
Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, the oldest grassroots
environmental group in the U.S., says its members grew uneasy with
what they saw as Obama's “de-prioritization” of climate change after
2010.
When they saw Obama start to express more skepticism about
Keystone's merits in his second term, they ramped up their direct
action. Now, says Brune, “there are hardly any new proposals for
energy infrastructure that don’t have significant protest movements
attached to them.”
ATLANTIC OCEAN TO POWDER RIVER
Activists say their new targets include the U.S. Interior Department
over the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land, exploratory oil
drilling off the Atlantic coast and the strip mining of coal in the
vast Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
A similar strategy has guided campaigns against fossil fuel
extraction for indigenous groups from Peru to Canada, and in India,
where Greenpeace has attempted to block projects ranging from hydro
power dams to coal mines.
Martin Kaiser, head of international climate politics at Greenpeace,
said the group has dialed down efforts to influence government
negotiations in the run-up to Paris in favor of direct action in its
campaign to achieve total reliance on renewable energy by 2050.
At the final meetings before Paris in Bonn last month, Greenpeace
had 15 activists tracking the negotiations – half the number who
attended such preparatory talks ahead of the Copenhagen summit.
“Our strategy has changed,” said Kaiser. “We are putting a lot of
our effort into those countries which are major emitters,” citing
campaigns in China, the United States, South Africa and Brazil.
Still, there have been setbacks. The Indian government last week
expelled Greenpeace, ostensibly for violating financing laws but
clearly after the organization became a thorn in the side of
authorities.
Activists acknowledge that for direct action to succeed, they need
projects like Keystone that resonate with the wider public.
"Keystone put a fire under everybody’s ass that had been lost," said
ForestEthics communications director Eddie Scher on Friday, making
his way to Lafayette Square to toast the win.
Scher says the pipeline debate offered a simple perspective on the
often complicated politics of climate change.
“There is no such thing as “clean oil” but if we are going to get
serious about dealing with climate disruption, the worst stuff is
what you stop first,” he said. "And we have a long list."
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Bruce Wallace and Alister Doyle;
Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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