January 18, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Labor Network For Sustainability is deeply encouraged by the Obama Administration’s decision to oppose the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
According to LNS Executive Director Joe Uehlein, “It’s an encouraging development. Oil companies and other pipeline advocates argued that the nation must choose between jobs and the environment. But in an era of climate crisis, this is a false choice: there will be no jobs on a dead planet. Building the Keystone pipeline will throw open the spigot to the Tar Sands in Canada, considered the dirtiest oil on the planet, and drive us ever closer to climate catastrophe.”
As LNS has documented (see “Climate Change: A Dagger Pointed at Your Job“), failure to address the climate crisis will result in the loss of millions of jobs and cripple our economy. The way to solve the economic catastrophe facing our working people is to go to work solving our climate catastrophe.
According to Uehlein, “Hurricanes, floods, and droughts are already having a devastating effect on American jobs, and that is nothing compared to what will happen in the future if Tar Sands carbon and the other greenhouse gasses that cause climate change are not rapidly reduced.”
But at the same time, workers need jobs now. That’s why LNS believes it is urgent and essential that we begin investing in a new sustainable economy that puts people to work mitigating climate change. Reflecting on the President’s Keystone decision, “Rather than polluting pipelines, we need to create ‘climate jobs’ that retrofit buildings, green our eroding water and transportation systems, and build a new alternative infrastructure for the future.”
The Labor Network for Sustainability is dedicated to engaging trade unions, workers and our allies to support economic, social, and environmental sustainability. LNS provides a community for those in the labor and sustainability movements and their allies who care about economic justice, ecology, and equality. Our members are helping labor become a force for advancing worker interests – while advancing the broader social good.
Contact Joe Uehlein, 202-256-7848/joeuehlein@mac.com