On Sunday, the National Wildlife Federation and our supporters took part in the largest climate rally in history. And that’s exactly what it felt like: being a part of history. Over 35,000 people came out in the blistering cold to show their unwavering devotion and commitment to our planet and its wildlife. Thousands of us stood in solidarity to push the most powerful man on earth to stand on the right side of history.

If President Obama is serious about tackling climate change, he needs to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Scientists have overwhelmed us with evidence that climate change is happening now and that we need to take serious steps to mitigate its effects. Wildlife all across the country are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and the upstream emissions alone from filling the Keystone XL pipeline would be equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 6.3 coal-fired power plants or more than 4.6 million passenger vehicles. This project is moving America in the wrong direction. We have a moral obligation to protect our children’s future from climate change.  So, what do people do when they want change but their elected officials don’t, won’t or can’t: we move, we march, we build, we take action.

On February 17th, we took to the streets. In a historic moment for the climate movement we stood up and said “yes we can” solve the climate crisis. However, the fight is not over, and the President still needs to be pushed.  In order to move towards a clean energy future we need to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Make your voice heard by telling the President that it is his turn to take action.

Share on Facebook to add your support for wildlife threatened by climate change and dirty energy.

Here are some more photos from the rally — if you attended, please add yours to the pool:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, endangered salmon are facing yet another challenge – one which most people don’t know about.

Starting this year, Exxon Mobil is planning to barge over 200 loads of Korean-made massive mining equipment (two-thirds the length of a football field, three stories high, 24 feet wide, and weighing up to 650,000 pounds!) up the Columbia and Snake rivers, and then transport it on super-sized trucks through Idaho and Montana to the tar sands oil operations in the boreal forest of Alberta, Canada.

And somehow, these plans have quietly moved forward with little environmental review or public input so far.

The proposed route includes the Lewis & Clark Trail, a National Scenic By-way, a Wild & Scenic River corridor, and the famed Blackfoot River of “A River Runs Through It.” If you’ve ever travelled the narrow mountain and valley roads in Idaho and Montana, you might be as baffled me as to how they are going to transport such massive loads. It’s apparent that these shipments will block traffic and access to emergency services, and disrupt local businesses. Construction and potential accidents will inevitably impact these special places and the fish and wildlife that depend on them.

Besides the impacts to the states along this route, these shipments will speed up Canadian dirty tar sands oil production — one of the most destructive and polluting industrial projects on earth. Oil companies are digging up pristine boreal forest and leaving behind huge toxic wastelands, posing a deadly threat to migrating waterfowl and other wildlife. Woodland caribou populations have already plummeted 70%, moose populations have dropped 60%, and scientists estimate bird mortality from the toxic tar sands lakes could be 8,000 to 100,000 birds a year.

The Canadian tar sands project is also one of the largest contributors on earth to climate disruption, creating global warming pollution three times that of conventional oil projects and devastating one of the best carbon storage sites on the planet: Canada’s Boreal Forest.  The enormous amounts of carbon that tar sands mining adds to our atmosphere is further heating up the waters that salmon rely on.

According to recently released documents, if this project is approved, other companies are planning to immediately use this route to transport their tar sands machinery to Canada. If it’s not stopped, Big Oil will have a permanent industrial shipping route through the Pacific Northwest to the environmental disaster that is the Alberta tar sands.

Lots of questions must be answered before permission should be granted. How will endangered salmon be affected? What are the risks and potential impacts to local businesses, communities and our natural resources?  We cannot stand quietly by while Big Oil turns our rivers and roads into a conveyer belt for one of the world’s largest environmental disasters.

TAKE ACTION: Insist upon a full federal environmental review and analysis of this project, including impacts to endangered wild salmon.