Waving signs and shouting chants, environmental advocates rallied outside a Coronado resort Wednesday to protest a pipeline conference hosted indoors.
The American Petroleum Institute, a gas and oil industry trade association, drew dozens of protesters outside its annual pipeline conference.
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Keystone Pipeline’s got to go!” the crowd cried.
Among the group was La Mesa resident Norrie Robbins. She sat at the entrance to the hotel, clutching the corner of a cardboard pipeline that stretched more than a dozen feet long.
“Fight Climate Change,” it read.
“What we’re trying to do is talk to the oil company executives who are in this resort here to let them know there is a lot of protest going on,” Robbins said.
That protest is against the Keystone XL Pipeline, which if approved would carry petroleum from Canada to Texas.
The rally was organized by SanDiego350.org. The group's co-founder, Masada Disenhouse said the event was also a message to the president.
“We’re here to call on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring dirty tar sands oil through the United States,” she said.
Disenhouse said tar sands oil is the dirtiest oil out there and pumping more would hinder attempts at stabilizing climate change.
“Scientists have said that if we want to stabilize the environment, we need not to burn most of the carbon, most of the fossil fuels reserves that we're already aware of,” Disenhouse said. “And so going out of our way to burn the very dirtiest of fossil fuels when we can't even burn the amount that we have identified in oil and gas is just not sane."
Representatives from the American Petroleum Institute were not immediately available for comment.
President Obama is expected to decide on the pipeline by summer.
