This Saturday, a crowd of over 60 (including roughly 25 Wesleyan students) rallied in Middletown against the Keystone XL Tarsands Pipeline. The pipeline, which would carry an especially nasty and energy intensive type of oil from indigenous lands in Alberta across the American prairie to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, has been derided by climate scientists as an extraction project that would spell “game over for the planet”.
The energetic march rallied on High Street before marching 1.5 miles up Washington to target TD Bank, one of the primary financiers of the pipeline project. The protesters held signs and banners, formed a picket outside the bank, chanted slogans, and distributed fliers to customers urging them to divest from TD Bank and join local credit unions, which are not-for-profit and member-run. The rally drew participants from all over the state including a number of Middletown locals.