In It. For Life.

 

Casting a pebble in a pond. The butterfly effect. Pillow talk. Seemingly minor things that ripple, resonate, sway. Cause and effect is often cloaked with uncertainty, though. As it is with complex issues and their outcomes. Sometimes it's not just one thing that creates change.

Take the Keystone XL Pipeline, for instance. The power was in the president's hands to prevent its construction and send a message to those who would put greed and profits over the health of our planet. Bill McKibben, and his 350.org stepped up and spearheaded the Tar Sands Action, a concert of civil disobedience at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sustainable Living Roadshow was there, as was I,

standing tremulous with emotion as the Capitol police closed us in with barricades, readying zip ties (the fast food of hand cuffs). After all was said and done, 1253 were arrested. We didn't take our foot off the pedal, though. After that, demonstrators were in Obama's face, following him around the country. And last weekend, a year from the day of the 2012 presidential election, 12,000 people encircled the White House. Yesterday, President Obama sent the pipeline proposal back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. (Had it been approved, a pipeline would have been built carrying dirty crude extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, across the United States to refineries deep in the heart of Texas.) His decision had been teetering on the brink, threatening to totter toward Big Oil. Was the White House convinced by the logic of our rhetoric, the unrelenting barrage of direct action or the sheer numbers of citizens exercising their patriotic duty? All of it could have been ignored, discredited or drowned out by opposing forces. That didn't happen. The seesaw tipped the other way, and we can all give a sigh of relief - even celebrate. At least momentarily. For this is but one of many such issues on the docket. Once you pick up the mantle for change, your work is never done. That's just the way it is with some things. You're in it for life.