Like many people, I came to the climate movement with Keystone XL, after years of despair. I treasured my quiet life, and didn't want to be an activist, but Jim Hansen's comment that tar sands development would be "game over" for the climate left me nowhere to hide. #KXLStories

When a "normal" plan — accepted, unhidden — has catastrophic ramifications (not even very far in the future!) & people you trust (for me, Hansen & @billmckibben) are making that manifest, you have a choice: leave what's "normal" behind and choose the truth, or hate yourself.

I have 6 older sisters & brothers; I feel compelled to point out that they would say I've never been normal.

Nevertheless! Those two words, "game over", cleaved my life in two. I'd been deeply worried for years (thanks, Bill!), & done nothing: there wasn't much to do, honestly.

There was no climate movement. There was little movement, period, towards ditching dirty fuels. There was some talk, a lot of incremental BS, a lot of paper-or-plastic, a lot of bad ideas (bumper stickers saying your car cleaned up after itself!). Meanwhile, the planet cooked.

It was KXL & "game over" that helped turned the tide: game on.

We see you, you lying sons of bitches (I'm looking at you, @ExxonMobil & @Shell & @TCEnergy). We are not going to lie down while you destroy everything we love.

Last week we won (again). When we fight, we do win.

But the good thing about KXL is that it gave a lot of people (like me) a real & specific focus for our climate anxiety: a big fat straw to suck the world's dirtiest oil into the US & up into the atmosphere.

Burning tar sands: what a ridiculous, disgusting, devastating idea.

(The idea that the FF industry ever convinced people that it's "modern", let alone "clean", is genuinely bizarre, when you think about it. They pillaged the Earth for carcinogenic, ecologically destabilizing gunk that they then set on fire. The future will think us barbaric.)

Life was never the same. It was far better, mostly: there are such wonderful people in this fight, there's such satisfaction in immersing myself in such meaningful work.

I still like a quiet life. But mostly, I like life—lots of it, of countless kinds. I don't want it to burn.

The KXL fight was big and broad and beautiful, because it was about life, precisely. All fossil fuel fights are: life nearby and life far away. Team Life vs. Team Burn It While We Can.

So we're gonna win. The only question is how much they burn first.

#NowDoLine3 #NoDAPL