I’ve written here a number of times about the Alberta tar sands and the Keystone XL, and going back a few years as well at my old Foreign Policy Association blog.  Ryan Lizza, a great political analyst and writer, wrote a fascinating update recently at The New Yorker:  The President and the Pipeline.  Not only does Lizza bring us up to date on the politics of the pipeline, but he profiles one of the key players in the mix today:  Tom Steyer.  Steyer is an activist with a difference – he’s got financial resources and many like-minded friends with similar resources.  He’s got the ear of President Obama.  He’s an increasingly influential force in Democratic party politics.  He also founded the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford Law School, along with his equally high-powered wife, Kat Taylor.  (I interviewed the executive director there, Dan Reicher, for my book, when Dan was still at Google.)  Steyer is, in short, somebody I’m glad to have in my foxhole with me.

Meanwhile, there’s a nationwide series of event coming this Saturday.  I’ll be in Battery Park in New York City – a place, not incidentally, recently awash from the 14-foot storm surge that Sandy brought us.  I’ll be speaking, so that’ll be nice.

There are scores of events, though, and you can find one near you here.  “Draw the Line” is being spearheaded, not surprisingly, by the indomitable 350.org, with a host of others involved.  We really need to make our voices heard, again and again, until the political cover is so enormous that Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama can feel happy and secure in the knowledge that we’ve got their backs on this one.

Here is Bill McKibben with why we need to speak out.  See you on Saturday!